


You're my star tonight

by idontshaveforsher_yesyoudo



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Actor Louis, F/F, Fluff, Getting Together, Girl Direction, I mean Louis Harry and Niall are girls, Implied Sexual Content, Movie AU, Mutual Pining, Not Actually Unrequited Love, but no actual smut because i'm a wimp, director harry, ummm theres some skiing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-10
Updated: 2018-05-10
Packaged: 2019-05-04 13:21:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 29,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14593902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idontshaveforsher_yesyoudo/pseuds/idontshaveforsher_yesyoudo
Summary: Louis is about to ask more about this mysterious director when she sees the door open and it feels like everything just stops for a moment.The woman that walks in is, to make it short, fucking gorgeous. She smiles broadly as she extends a hand and says, “Hi, you must be Louis. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”Louis meets her grip. “I’m, um, hi.” Right. That’s about the most that her brain can put together at the moment. The rest of her thoughts are occupied by the sight of the woman’s eyes under her fringe and are shoutinggreengreengreenrepeatedly. She hears Niall snickering next to her and her cheeks heat up.Or, the one where Louis is an actress about to make her Hollywood breakthrough who loves ice cream, wearing suits to red carpets, and maybe the hot director of the really gay film she's starring in. But since her pining is definitely unrequited she's mostly content with being said hot director's friend and having internal breakdowns about said hot director's tattoos. Everyone else is just wants her to stop being oblivious.





	You're my star tonight

**Author's Note:**

> Sooo this was supposed to be about 4k, idk how the fuck it ended up at almost 30k. I just basically wanted to write something really gay and this is what came out (pun intended)... Also btw Harry's sister is based on Nomi from Sense8 bc I love her with all my heart. 
> 
> Title from Jordan Rakei's Eye to Eye
> 
> This story is entirely fictional and is in no way connected to any real people. Any mistakes are my own. Feedback is always much appreciated! xx

 

 

Surprisingly, Louis doesn’t feel nervous at all when she enters the room for her first read-through.

This might be her first big Hollywood production but it sure as hell isn’t her first movie and they did cast her for a reason, after all, so she’s feeling quite confident. _Actually Star Light_ , the movie is called, featuring Louis playing a lesbian who dates a guy she knows from work to make her family happy only to fall in love with his sister. It’s mostly just a dumb, happy rom-com with some social justice-y undertones and a lot of gay people in the story as well as in the cast and crew. Louis couldn’t be more excited to be a part of it.

There are several people in the room already and Louis bumps into Maria, a woman about the same age as her with an important looking clipboard. She remembers seeing her at her auditions as well and shakes her hand happily.

“Louis! Hi, how are you?”

Louis grins and tries to run a hand through her hair, forgetting for a moment that she got a buzz cut for this movie just last week. It’s a lot shorter than her previous bob, but Louis had been considering cutting off her hair for a while now, so this role was just a reason for her to actually go through with it.

“Hi, I’m alright, how about you?”

“Oh, I’m just glad that this whole thing is running now. Organising is stressful as heck.”

“Hang on, you organised all of this?”

Maria nods. “Yeah, I’m in charge of making sure that everyone is where they’re supposed to be and on time and all that.”

Louis whistles under her breath and scans the crowd of actors and producers and assistants until she spots a head of long bleach blonde hair among them. “I’m just quickly gonna say hi to Niall, we’ll continue this later if that’s alright with you?”

Maria laughs. “Off you go. Don’t worry about me, I’ve got plenty of work to do.”

Louis makes her way past a few other mingling people until she’s near Niall, who turns her head just in time to spot her coming up.

“Louis mate! How are you? Wicked haircut!”

Louis grins as she’s pulled into a hug. She met Niall a couple of months back when they had their chemistry test – she is playing Louis’ love interest, after all – and Niall seems just as loud and cheery as she remembers it.

“Well, _girlfriend_ , I am in fact splendid now that I’m with you.”

Niall claps her back and then makes her voice go two octaves higher than usual in an exaggerated Californian accent. “Oh, babe, how fantastic. I missed you!”

They look into each other’s eyes for a few seconds until Louis breaks and starts laughing, Niall following immediately.

Louis is still giggling when Liam nears them, who Louis knows from auditioning as well and who will play Niall’s brother. Niall sobers up quickly.

“I believe your beard just walked in. Brother dear, how have you been?”

Louis joins in, “Oh, love, I haven’t seen you in ages! I’m still sorry about being gay and breaking up with you.”

Liam looks from one to the other in confusion for a moment until Louis and Niall start grinning.

“Hi, Liam. How you doing?”

Louis moves to hug him and Niall follows and soon they’re leading casual small talk. Louis is glad to find that they get on like a house on fire, especially after Liam takes out his phone to show them pictures of his new puppy.

At one point, Louis asks, “So, who is this director of ours? Was she at your auditions?”

Liam and Niall both shake their heads. During all of Louis’ two week audition process the director didn’t show up once, always letting the casting director and Maria run the show. It looks like it was similar for Niall and Liam, and it is weird as fuck if you ask Louis. This is, after all, a multimillion-dollar production; you’d think that as a director you’d want to make sure that whoever is in the main parts is the right choice.

“Nope. Heard it was some personal thing.”

Liam hums. “You do know Harry Styles, though, don’t you?”

“She directed _Grains of Sugar_ , didn’t she? That was dope.”

Liam grins. “Yeah, she was quite proud of that.”

“You know her personally, then?” Sue Louis if she’s curious about the director of this movie, but _Grains of Sugar_ is one of her favourite movies from the last few years. It’s about a young woman finding her place in London and falling in love with the daughter of the owner of a bakery around the corner and was nominated for several awards for cinematography and acting during award season last year. It was one of the reasons why Louis was immediately on board when her agent sent her the script for this movie and she has been waiting to meet the director for ages now. This combined with the mysterious _Harry Styles_ not showing up at all during Louis’ in-person auditions made her curious to no ends and if she can find answers by asking Liam then so be it.

“Yeah, we met in my final year at uni. I acted in a project for one of her courses.”

Louis is about to ask more when she sees the door open out of the corner of her eye and, without really knowing why, turns her head to see who entered and it feels like everything just _stops_ for a moment.

The woman is, to make it short, fucking gorgeous. Louis’ eyes roam across her red blouse and endless legs in tight black jeans, take in the woman’s long hair flowing over her shoulders and the way her fringe is slightly curled. There are several tattoos cluttered on her arms and a few rings glinting on her hands and Louis _can’t fucking breathe_.

Someone elbows her in the ribs and the world starts turning normally again.

When she looks over Niall is smirking at her and Louis would blush if she weren’t still half in a trance. Niall wiggles her eyebrows and Louis blinks a few times, takes a deep breath and turns to look towards the woman again, only to realise that she is _right in front of her_ hugging Liam. Louis feels the wheels in her head turning until the woman disentangles herself from Liam and turns to Louis and Niall standing there.

She smiles broadly as she extends a hand and says, “Hi, you must be Louis. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Louis meets her grip. “I’m, um, hi.” Right. That’s about the most that her brain can put together at the moment. The rest of her thoughts are occupied by the sight of the woman’s eyes under her fringe and are shouting _greengreengreen_ repeatedly. She hears Niall snickering next to her and her cheeks heat up.

Thank god for Liam, though. He pinches the woman’s arm. “Introductions, Harry. She doesn’t even know who you are yet, _Jesus_.”

A light blush dusts the woman’s cheekbones. ( _Shit_ , her cheekbones. Louis wants to lick them.) “Right, sorry. I’m Harry. Harry Styles.”

“Well, hello. I’m Louis. Louis Tomlinson. You seem to know that already, though.” So this is the director. Louis is absolutely fucked. She smiles despite her inner crisis and thanks the heavens that she can always rely on her ability to tease anyone she meets.

Harry is still smiling at her. “I saw your audition tape. It was really good.”

Louis grins. “Thank god. I was scared I’d meet you and you’d throw me out of the production for being a lousy actress.”

“Haven’t you heard? You were cast because of your cute bob, so now that that’s gone…”

“Oh, I see. So you’re just gonna throw me out because I got a haircut, huh?”

“I might just do that.”

Louis licks her lips, suddenly feeling nervous under the scrutinising look Harry’s giving her. Her imagination might deceive her, but Harry’s eyes seem to drop to her mouth for a second before flicking up again. Neither of them says anything for a moment until someone next to them clears their throat.

“Right. I’m Niall Horan.”

For a second, Harry looks like she just woke up from a dream and Louis is pretty sure she’s not much better. Then the look is wiped off Harry’s face and she turns to Niall and smiles widely. They shake hands.

“Hi, I’m Harry. Nice to meet you.”

“I know. I heard you before.” There’s a twinkle in Niall’s eyes and Louis knows neither of them will ever live this down. Harry just laughs and rubs her neck embarrassedly.

“Right. Okay. We should probably get this started.” Harry straightens her composure and gives Maria a sign with her hand, getting a nod in return. Then she claps her hands together a few times to get people’s attention and raises her voice. “Hi, everyone. Please settle down, we’re ready to begin now that everyone’s arrived.”

Everyone gets seated at their designated spaces at the tables that are put up in a half circle. Louis is delighted to see that her name card is sitting between Niall and Harry, the latter speaking up as soon as everyone’s quiet again.

“So, to quickly introduce myself, I’m Harry Styles and in the name of the production team I’d like to welcome you all to this first reading.”

 

\--

 

Louis is surprised by how quickly the first few weeks pass by. She spends a lot of time rehearsing scenes with other actors, being the leading part and all. Harry is there most of the time and helps them work out their characters. Once Louis overcomes the initial _holy shit she’s a literal goddess among humans_ stage (Not that she is entirely over it, but fake it till you make it, right?) she discovers that Harry is actually really fun to be around. Her and Louis seem to be on the same wavelength, or something, because the more time Louis spends with Harry the more she realises that they’re both weirdly in sync. It has been less than a month and they’re making quips at each other and sharing inside jokes as if they’d known each other for years.

Then they start filming and it’s even more fun, being able to go full out with her character. Most of her scenes are with Liam and Niall, who are both lovely. Niall likes to mention the description of her being the ‘pretty sister’ of Louis’ boyfriend-slash-beard at every possible occasion. Her character is gloriously pansexual, which causes some confusion because Louis’ character thinks she’s straight at first, but after some miscommunication they get their happy ending because this is, after all, a cheesy romance movie. (It was another reason why Louis was so excited for this movie. She’s done seeing gay women having sad endings or dying in movies all the time.)

The required big dramatic kiss scene is shot in the third week of filming. They’re outside in some random car park in LA and it’s March and about seven in the morning because they needed the sunrise for some aesthetic reason, so Louis and Niall are freezing their asses off in their flimsy summer outfits during takes as they dramatically proclaim their love for each other and then kiss even more dramatically. It’s tiring, having to stay in such an emotional state and saying the same few sentences over and over again, but then it’s all worth it when they’re huddled up in warm coats and watch the footage back.

The grey of the concrete buildings around them in contrast with the colours of the morning make the emotions seem raw and sincere, somehow, and Louis and Niall high-five because not to sound cocky but their acting is _brilliant_. When Louis looks over at Harry she’s smiling at the camera screen, but also has suspiciously red eyes.

“Are you crying?”

“No, of course not.” Harry sniffles. Her hair, apart from her fringe, is tied back in a messy bun and her hoodie is just on the brink of being too big. It makes her look kind of adorable, much to Louis’ despair.

Louis grins. “You definitely are. This is a happy end, you softie!”

Harry tries to wipe her eyes without attracting attention. “Happy endings make me emotional.”

“You do know that we haven’t even shot the real emotional scenes yet?”

“Shut up.”

But Louis can’t hold back her laughter, and it doesn’t take long for Harry to join in, and then they’re laughing without anything really being funny. Niall throws them a weird look and they have to laugh even more and Louis kind of wants to never stop seeing Harry like this, carefree and happy and so, so beautiful.

 

\--

 

They shoot the scene where Louis’ character comes out to her mother two weeks later and half of the people in the room are close to crying, Louis included.

The problem with shooting a movie about a gay protagonist and having lots of gay people on set, she muses while she tries to will her tears back into her eyes as she watches some of the footage from the scene, the problem is that there are scenes that might hit a bit close to home for a lot of crewmembers.

The scene’s not actually really sad, the mother and the daughter talk and the mother tries to understand her daughter and, even if she’s not fully supportive, still hugs her tightly in the end. But since pretty much everyone in this room has lived to some kind of similar situation a following cry-fest is kind of predictable.

After reshooting one part of the scene because of lightning issues they’re free to go and Louis looks for Harry in the chaos of crew members packing up. She finds her by one of the cameras, still looking at the footage.

“Hi.”

Harry looks up and smiles, but it’s clear that she has been crying as well. “Hey, you. You were brilliant today.”

Louis feels her cheeks heat up. “Thanks. So how are you feeling after this actual emotional scene?”

“Emotional?”

Louis exhales audibly. “Wanna cry it out over ice cream in my flat tonight?”

She watches as the corners of Harry’s eyes crinkle as she starts to smile. “I’d love that.”

She starts moving, then, picking up stray scripts and making sure that the camera and its material are safely stored away and Louis leaves her to it to get her makeup removed and change into normal clothes again. Once she’s gathered all her things she goes back to the set to look for Harry and finds her talking to one of the assistant producers. When Louis gets close she says goodbye to the woman, hosts a bag over her shoulder and grins at Louis.

“Ready to leave?”

Louis grins back. “Let’s go.”

They take Louis’ car since Harry carpooled with Maria this morning. The drive to the small flat Louis rented for the time she’s staying in LA is spent with the windows rolled down and the radio turned up. Louis finds out that Harry, apart from everything else, also has a lovely singing voice, even deeper than her normal one. Weirdly enough, it doesn’t lose any of its charm when they’re shouting along to the newest Ed Sheeran hit without ever really hitting the notes. Louis makes sure her eyes stay trained on the street, but she can’t help herself but let them wander a few times while they’re stuck in traffic.

Harry’s face is illuminated by the setting sun – a glance at the watch of her car tells her it’s already seven pm, which would explain why she’s so hungry – and her hair is dishevelled by the wind. Louis can tell she’s not wearing any make up but her skin seems to glow despite it and her lips stretch deliciously pink around her wide smile. She looks ethereal and Louis has to tear her eyes away when the car in front of them moves. She is, quite clearly, absolutely fucked.

They arrive at her apartment building at quarter past seven and decide to pick up some Chinese takeout at the corner and then make their way back to Louis’ flat, stopping on the way to pet a cute cat and then again because Harry wants to take an aesthetic picture of some pink roses on a window sill they pass.

When they finally arrive at the flat Louis kicks off her shoes and throws her denim jacket over some chair standing in the entrance and tells Harry to do the same. She then takes in her living room and the adjoined kitchen with a wince. Books and magazines are spread next to the sofa, dishes are stacked up in the sink and several items of clothing are scattered all over the place. Louis sets off to gather some of them quickly while Harry deposits their take out containers on the kitchen counter and looks around curiously.

“Sorry for the mess.”

“Don’t worry. I don’t mind, honestly.”

Louis shoves the clothes into her bedroom and starts collecting the things on and around the sofa so they have somewhere to sit. “Do you want to get, like, plates? Or is eating out of the box fine?”

She can hear Harry taking their dinner out of the plastic bags. “Shouldn’t we do this the proper way? Fuck plates.”

Louis grins at that. “A girl after my own heart. I was only asking to be polite anyway.”

Harry laughs at that and Louis moves to the kitchen.

“There should be some DVDs over by the TV, see if there’s anything you like. Or we can check out what Netflix has to offer.” She has a look in her fridge. “Beer or wine?”

“Wine, please.” Harry carries the takeout over to the coffee table and when Louis follows with the chopsticks and two glasses she’s already setting up the TV.

“What are we watching?”

Harry beams up at her from her position on the floor. “Well, since you’re a fellow Brit I was thinking _The Thick of It_?”

Louis grins and sits down next to her in front of the coffee table. “Watching Peter Capaldi swear at people who can’t do their jobs properly? Hell yeah.”

The menu comes up and Harry presses play on the first episode. They’ve both seen the series before so they spend half of the time inventing elaborate backstories for the characters. By the time the second episode is finished so are takeout containers and wine glasses and Louis is ready for some ice cream, so she gets up to her feet, gathers the empty containers and puts them on the counter and then gets a three flavours ice cream box out of the freezer and grabs two spoons and the opened bottle of wine.

Now that the TV is turned off the room is dark, the only light coming from the city outside, the kitchen light and the small lamp next to the sofa that Harry must have turned on. Louis sets down the things she got and quickly lifts her arms above her head to stretch. When she focuses on Harry again she seems to be staring at where Louis’ shirt is riding up and exposing her waist. Interesting. She files this information away for later.

Louis pours them another glass of wine and plops down on the sofa with the ice cream container. Harry follows suit with her own glass and the spoons.

“Hang on.” Louis sets down the container between them and moves around until she’s facing Harry cross-legged. Harry mirrors her and clinks their glasses together.

“To not working in the British government.”

Louis laughs. “To not having someone swear at us at our workplace all day.”

They dig into the ice cream and are quiet for a while. The air feels as if it’s sizzling with energy, Louis is just not sure of which kind.

She looks up and finds Harry looking back at her already and for a second, their eyes meet and Louis thinks that Harry’s going to lean forward and kiss her, but the moment is gone as fast as it came. Then Harry starts talking.

“The first person I came out to was my sister, Nomi.” She inhales, takes another spoon out of the container. Louis watches as the strawberry ice cream disappears in her mouth and wonders what she did to be punished with seeing these delightful pink lips without being able to kiss them. Then she mentally scolds herself because this is clearly not the moment for this kind of thought.

Harry continues. “I was so scared. I was fifteen, and I’d been figuring it out for a while, you know, the reason why the idea of dating boys always seemed kind of gross to me and why I thought that girls were just so much prettier.”

Louis smiles at that. “Relatable.”

Harry smiles back, her eyes soft and green and almost unearthly. “I went for a walk with her one Saturday, and I’d promised myself that I was going to come out that day. But like, you know how your throat kind of, closes up, and the words just… won’t come out?”

Louis nods. Of course she does.

“And we’d almost returned to our house again and I hadn’t said anything yet, so I stopped her down by the river and said that I needed to tell her something. And she was listening and she clearly knew something was up but she didn’t know what, and we stood in silence for like, five minutes, before I burst out that I might like girls. And then I was crying and she hugged me and told me that it was all going to be okay.”

There are tears gathering in Harry’s eyelashes and Louis feels them welling up in her eyes as well.

“She seems lovely.”

One of Harry’s dimples pops out. “She is. And then, like, two months later she came out to me as trans. I was still calling her my brother back then, because I didn’t know, you know?”

Louis sets the ice cream container aside and grabs Harry’s hand, stroking the back of it. Harry sniffles.

“That’s why I wasn’t there during your auditions. She had her operations and that was the only date that was free and I just – I wanted to be with her. I couldn’t leave her alone after something so important. So I flew home for a few weeks and left Maria in charge of everything here.”

And Louis has to stifle a smile because this woman in front of her is so lovely and caring and Louis wants nothing more than to hug her right now, so she does exactly that, moves forward and wraps her arms around Harry tightly. In turn, Harry clings to her just as hard.

They sit like that, and then Louis decides that it’s her turn.

“I was in drama class back in high school when I realised I was gay.”

Harry moves away a bit, dabs the sleeve of her sweater under her eyes and then grabs her glass of wine and gets into a position where she can see Louis’ face better while listening. Louis notices that their knees are still touching and that Harry has a hand on her leg now. It’s oddly comforting to have someone in such a close proximity, so she continues.

“We were doing a warm-up exercise and at one part you had to pretend to be in love with someone and then kind of, you know, slow dance or something. And I ended up with a girl that was a year older than me and we were doing some awkward shuffling back and forth thing. I remember that all I could focus on were her lips and how much I wanted to lean forward and just – Nothing happened, of course, but I went home that day and realised that all of the doubt that had been building up in me over the past months about liking boys had a reason. I think I cried for like, an hour that night.”

Harry hums. “After I first told myself out loud that I liked girls I cried myself to sleep.”

Louis frowns and grabs Harry’s hand where it’s still positioned on her leg. “That’s bullshit, though.”

Harry rubs her thumb over her palm and smiles, but it’s small and almost sad. “Totally. But what’s important is that I’m alright now, all in all.”

“Still. I hate that you had to go through that.”

Harry shakes her head a bit. “It’s not like you had it easy, either. The heteronormativity of our society is bullshit in general.”

“True, that.” Louis leans down to get her glass from the floor but makes sure to keep her hand in Harry’s. She has no idea what this is, exactly, but even if it’s just friendly handholding this moment feels to fragile to destroy. She contemplates in silence for a while before she asks, “So how did you handle it when you like, became a director? Were you closeted at first or…”

Harry grins and shakes her head. “No, was already doing gay movies when I was at uni, you know, for projects and stuff? And when I’d finished I did a few independent non-Hollywood movies, and most of them were really gay, and by the time that I was asked to do bigger projects it was pretty clear that I wasn’t straight.” She takes a sip of her wine. “I don’t think I ever made an official statement confirming my sexuality, but if someone asked I’d tell them that I’m, like, a hundred per cent gay.”

Louis hums in agreement and nods along to what Harry is telling her because she’s in a pretty similar situation. Most of the movies and plays she has been a part of were gay to some extent, and while she has played straight characters before those numbers are tiny in comparison to how often she’s posed as someone who’s non-hetero. “It’s pretty much the same with me. Although I tweet about how much of a lesbian I am all the time, so there really shouldn’t be any confusion left in that matter.”

Harry chuckles and then they sit in comfortable silence for a while, sipping on their wine and holding hands. Harry draws patterns on Louis’ palm and Louis hums softly. She feels the exhaustion from the day catch up as she struggles to suppress a yawn and realises that it must be quite late by now. The words leave her mouth before her tired brain has fully processed them.

“Do you want to stay over?”

The quiet smile that has been on Harry’s face for the last few minutes grows. “If it’s not any bother? We have to be on set around the same time tomorrow, don’t we?”

Louis groans at that. She had forgotten that she has to get up tomorrow at six if she still wants to shower before leaving and then have enough time for some breakfast.

As if she read her mind, Harry continues, “I’ll even make you breakfast.”

“I’m not sure if we’ll have time, but I’ll gladly take you up on that offer some other day.”

She gets up with a sigh and puts the rest of the ice cream back into the freezer and the wine bottle (not empty yet, but distinctively less full than it had been earlier) next to the fridge.

“There should be a spare toothbrush and some stuff to clean your face with in the cupboard in the bathroom. You get ready and I’ll see if I can find any clothes that fit your giant limbs.”

Harry grins. “I’m not giant, you’re just tiny.”

“Fuck off.”

Louis does actually find an old tee and some baggy sweatpants and figures that, since she’s a bit wider around the hips and boobs and Harry is, despite Louis’ denial, quite a bit taller than her, the clothes should work. She gets changed into soft pyjama pants and another stretched out shirt and then moves into the bathroom when Harry gets out to do her nightly routine (which only consists of brushing her teeth and wiping any stray makeup from the set off her face, but it’s still a routine).

When she’s finished she finds Harry on the sofa scrolling through her phone. She doesn’t seem to notice her at first and Louis uses the opportunity to appreciate the sight of her wearing Louis’ clothes, sweatpants a little too short and shirt a bit too wide, hair flowing over her shoulders, face illuminated by her phone screen. She looks soft and somehow still too fucking angelic to be lying on Louis’ sofa in her messy living room on a Wednesday night.

Louis clears her throat and is faced with Harry’s dimples in their full glory, which doesn’t really help her current situation _at all_. She clears her throat again. She’s about to do something stupid, but while brushing her teeth she’d decided that she won’t let something like a silly crush come between her and Harry’s friendship.

“You need to charge that?” She gestures at the phone. “You can plug it in next to my bed for the night.”

“That would be great, thank you. I was just waiting for you so you could tell me where your spare blankets are, then I’ll get comfortable here.”

Well, here goes nothing. Louis scoffs and says, “No way you’re sleeping on the sofa. Your legs would hang off the sides. You’re sleeping in my bed, it’s big enough for two people.”

“Are you sure? I’m already taking advantage of you enough, I’ll be fine out here.”

Louis can feel Harry’s hesitation and hopes that she didn’t overstep any boundaries, but decides to push past her doubts anyway.

“Nah, no way I’m being a bad host and make you sleep on the couch. It’s no bother, really.”

Louis takes the lead and heads down the small hallway to her bedroom, grabbing a spare duvet and another pillow from a closet on her way. She stops in the doorway and turns around. “You coming?” She hears shuffling in the living room and then the lights are turned off and Harry follows her. Louis places the pillow and blanket on the bed, searches for a charger for Harry’s phone, then turns off the big light on the ceiling and gets into bed next to Harry. Harry plugs in her phone, Louis makes sure they have an alarm set for tomorrow morning, then they move around a bit until they’re both settled under their duvets and Louis turns off the light on her nightstand.

It’s quiet for a moment, then Louis says, “Goodnight, Harry.”

She can hear Harry’s smile as she whispers back, “Sleep tight, Lou.”

Louis sinks into the mattress and falls asleep with a mirroring smile on her face.

 

\--

 

When her alarm goes off it takes Louis ten seconds to move her hand to blindly turn it off and bury her face back into her pillow.

She vaguely registers someone moving next to her and her tired brain panics for a moment before she remembers last night. Then she turns around and pulls the covers over her head. She has three more alarms set; she’ll wake up in time like she always does eventually.

Her dream involves Peter Capaldi and a huge cake that he pushes into someone’s face and it’s interrupted when someone gently shakes her shoulder. She blinks a few times before she realises that Harry is leaning over her.

“Good morning.”

Louis mumbles something that vaguely sounds like _morning_ and yawns as she rubs her eyes. “What time’s it?”

“If you shower now I’ll make you some tea and you’ll still have time enough to drink it.”

That sounds great. Louis is convinced.

Harry continues, “I already had a shower, hope that’s okay.”

Louis hums. “Sure. Need a new shirt?”

“Oh no, I already slept in your bed, I’m not gonna take your clothes as well.”

After heaving herself out of bed Louis stumbles through the room and searches something to wear to set today and replies, “I’d gladly exchange a shirt for some tea.”

“Well, then, that sounds like a plan.”

Louis grabs some clothes and says, “Pick whichever shirt you find that fits you. I’m gonna shower,” then heads off to do just that.

When she comes out of the bathroom she is feeling decisively more awake and finds Harry at the kitchen counter staring at a cup of tea, another one next to her. She looks up when Louis comes in and beams. Louis groans internally because it’s far too early to be confronted with Harry’s shining beauty, even if her hair is slightly messy and her eyes are still bleary. Louis doesn’t know how she does it, but since she met Harry there hasn’t been a single moment where she hasn’t looked like a fucking angel and it’s not fucking fair.

“I wasn’t sure how you take your tea but I guessed milk? Hope that’s okay.”

“That’s lovely, thank you.” Then, after a quick glance at the clock on the microwave tells Louis that they still have some spare time she adds, “You want some cereal before we leave?”

It turns out that Harry does, so they each have a bowl and then set them into the sink with the rest of the dishes, Louis assuring Harry that she’ll do them later and that it’s really no bother at all. Then Louis looks at the clock again and realises that they need to leave in five minutes if they want to make it on set in time for Louis to not get into trouble with makeup and wardrobe and Harry to have her morning meeting because she’s, you know, the director of their movie.

They leave the flat in a flurry, Harry looking for her jacket while Louis hops around on one foot trying to tie her shoe, then both of them scrabble for the car keys and finally race down the stairs once they find them on the table near the entrance where they were supposed to be _in the first place_.

They arrive on set only five minutes late, which Louis counts as a success as she waves in Harry’s direction and runs off in her own. Her makeup-artist is already waiting for her and tuts when she sees Louis’ dishevelled, slightly out of breath appearance, but soon enough is bustling around her with brushes and powders to make her look acceptable for the camera. Then she’s directed towards the changing room all the actors share, which is where she meets Niall and Liam, who are already changed into their outfits of the day. Louis changes as well and then spends the next twenty minutes drinking shitty coffee from the snack table and chatting with them.

Louis checks one of the sheets hung up to the wall so see which scene they’re filming today. It turns out that it is the one where Liam, her _I’m-dating-you-to-pretend-I’m-straight-and-make-my-family-happy_ boyfriend, introduces her to his sister, played by Niall, with whom Louis’ character promptly falls in love on first sight with. The whole scene is supposed to be light-hearted but also kind of awkward, and the three of them spend their time before filming starts chatting about incidents of them pretending to be straight in the past, which leads to Liam recounting the hilarious story of how he and Harry first met because he was still pretending to be straight in front of some of his _bros_ by asking Harry out.

Louis is still giggling about the thought of young Liam being turned down by young, very openly gay Harry when their _lounging around_ , as Maria likes to call it, gets interrupted by an intern calling them on set. Then it’s suddenly all stress and figuring out the lighting and making sure all the cameras are rolling and they’re in the middle of the scene.

The day drags on because they have to a fuck-ton of retakes, which has absolutely nothing to do with Louis getting distracted by Harry behind the camera wearing Louis’ shirt, which is a bit tight around her shoulders and generally looks lovely tucked into her high-waist jeans. She is a professional actor; she is perfectly capable of keeping up her concentration, thank you very much.

The next day Louis finds a small bag in her trailer with her shirt in it, washed and folded and a box with a cupcake in it laid on top of it. The box is signed with Harry’s initials and a heart and Louis does not blush, she doesn’t. So what if she wears the shirt to bed that night, and the next few nights until it starts loosing Harry’s smell? She just really likes the laundry detergent that Harry uses, that’s all.

 

\--

 

**Harry Styles:** What are you doing tomorrow?

 

Louis gets the text on Saturday evening.

After spending most of her day cleaning up her apartment and running errands Louis had planned on spending her Sunday on the couch with some series to binge watch and loads of junk food. Spending it with Harry does, however, sound more interesting.

 

**Louis Tomlinson:** nothing special why

**Harry Styles:** Wanna hang out?

**Louis Tomlinson:** sure  
what do u have in mind?

**Harry Styles:** Pick you up at 1030?

**Louis Tomlinson:** sounds good :)

**Harry Styles:** :))) xx

 

Louis drops her phone on her chest and grins. She has a feeling that tomorrow’s going to be a good day.

 

\--

 

The weather does not seem to agree with Louis on this because when she wakes up a cloudy sky and a slight drizzle falling.

However, Louis doesn’t let this bother her and gets ready without her smile ever leaving her face. She’s spending the day with Harry, and she’s too bloody excited to let a little rain stop her.

Her enthusiasm is momentarily stalled when she stands in front of her wardrobe trying to decide what to wear. She knows this is not a date or anything but she still wants to look nice, but also not too nice, so she hesitates for a moment. Then she decides that Harry has seen her arriving on set looking like a zombie in the morning almost every day for the past month, so it shouldn’t really matter what she wears. She opts for black skinny jeans and a white t-shirt that shows off her collarbones, decides against makeup and is, once again, glad that her hair’s currently only a few millimetres long and that she doesn’t have to do anything with it.

She grabs her denim jacket with the soft collar, makes sure she has her wallet and phone and then locks the door. She’s downstairs just in time to see Harry’s car pull up and hops in on the passenger side with a wide smile.

“Good morning!”

“Hey Lou,” Harry drawls, grinning just as wide as Louis. She leans across the console to hug her.

“So, where are we going?” Louis buckles her seatbelt as Harry manoeuvres the car back onto the street.

“Well, I was thinking of a flea market, but it seems as if the weather crossed our plans. Though it might clear up later, what do you think?”

Louis looks at the sky a bit sceptically. It still seems pretty grey and cloudy to her, and when she utters as much Harry chuckles.

“Well, we are in California, after all. We can always hope. Anyway, I was thinking we could check out the flower market a few streets down if you’re okay with that?” Her eyes are focused on the road but she’s biting her bottom lip in a betrayal of nerves. Or maybe Louis is reading too much into this.

She smiles widely. “Sure, sounds great.” Her eyes stay focused on Harry and she watches the other woman visibly relax. So she was nervous despite her calm behaviour. Interesting. “So, Miss Styles, do you have a favourite flower?”

Harry’s dimples pop up. “You’ll have to find out.”

The flower market is breath taking. Louis never thought she was one for nature, but wandering among the rows and rows of flowers of all sizes and colours she gets what all the fuss is about.

It does help, of course, that she’s there with Harry, who’s positively glowing, pulling Louis from one flower to the next, smelling them and taking pictures and talking about what she likes about them. Louis is mostly just content with following Harry through the aisles, listening to her ramblings about the importance of the meaning of flowers. She does take a picture of Harry standing between pots of purple heather with a soft smile on her face, a hand caressing the flowers in front of her. Louis doesn’t know if it’s the brown locks falling around her face or the contrast of the colours with her white shirt, but something makes her instinctively capture this brief moment of absolute piece.

When they leave, Louis wordlessly hands Harry a small bundle of the purple flowers and the smile on Harry’s face says everything.

“How did you know?” Her voice is low as she takes in the bouquet.

Louis bites her lip, but it doesn’t stop her mouth from stretching into a grin or the corners of her eyes from crinkling. “Wasn’t all that hard.”

Harry takes another look at the branches of heather in her hand, then pulls one of the short stems out of the bundle and tucks it behind Louis’ ear. She takes a second one and sticks it into her own hair, mirroring Louis’ flower, before carefully putting the rest of the flowers into her pocket. Louis feels her cheeks flush as Harry beams at her.

“Fancy something to eat?” Before Louis can reply Harry grabs her hand and pulls her towards a small café across the street. Louis just huffs out an astonished laugh and lets her.

They have lunch and share a delicious piece of chocolate cake. Once they’re finished the sky has cleared up and the sun is shining, making them both shed their jackets as they stroll through the flea market that Harry had originally planned on visiting. Harry buys a cute ring because she seems to think that the three she’s wearing aren’t enough already, and Louis gets a book that seems interesting because the piles of unread books she has at home aren’t enough already. By the time that Harry drops Louis off at her flat Louis’ cheeks are hurting from smiling so much and when Harry gets out of the car to wrap her up in a tight hug she loops her arms around her neck and buries her face in Harry’s chest.

 

\--

 

The remaining weeks of filming pass in the blink of an eye.

Louis spends most of the time on set goofing around with Niall and Liam. As a means to pass time they have started to bring random plays on set and then dramatically act them out. Louis’ favourite was Niall doing the entire ‘to be or not to be’ monologue from Hamlet by heart, reciting it loud enough to gather almost the entire crew around her as she rolled over the floor and clutched her chest. She finished sprawled out on a sofa with everyone applauding. Niall bowed deeply enough for her head to almost touch the ground and then started convincing Louis and Liam to be the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to her Hamlet.

On the weekends Louis hangs out with Harry, occasionally dragging various other crew members and actors along, but mostly spending time just the two of them. They visit museums and see movies and go to bars and talk for hours about everything and nothing. Louis meets Harry’s sister Nomi over skype one day and immediately likes her, especially when she starts telling incriminating stories about Harry back when she was in high school. In turn Louis tells Harry everything about her own gang of siblings back home and shows her endless pictures of them when they were still cute little babies. Harry recounts stories of what she would get up to at University with her friends and Louis finds out that she minored in music theory next to her major in directing. She learns a lot more about Harry, little details from how she likes her tea (milk and two spoons of sugar, much to Louis’ dismay) to her preferred car position (driving, much to Louis’ delight), but also bigger stuff like the fact that she has living in Los Angeles for a couple of years now but that she still misses England sometimes. Louis tells her that she’s welcome any time in her London flat if she can still handle British weather. It’s amazing to be able to spend this much time with someone and still not be sick of them and Louis is so busy loving life that the last day of shooting creeps up on her without her noticing.

Suddenly they’re filming the last scene, which is one where Louis’, Niall’s and Liam’s characters are just hanging out, and then everyone is cheering and someone brings out a cake and Harry is flicking through the last bit of footage with an easy smile. Louis gets distracted by the sight for a minute, taking in her messy bun and gleaming green eyes. She watches as Harry brushes a stray lock of her fringe to the side and then suddenly she’s looking up and her eyes meet Louis’. Harry’s face lights up even more and she looks downright radiant. Louis’ heart skips a beat as Harry gets up and comes her way.

When she’s right in front of Louis Harry moves forward and engulfs Louis in a tight embrace. Her lips are near Louis’ ear and her breath tickles Louis’ neck as she whispers, “I’m so proud of this.”

Louis answers, “I’m so proud of _you_.”

Harry huffs, but keeps her arms around Louis until a loud voice appears next to them:

“Group hug!”

Louis laughs as Niall throws her arms around both of them. Liam follows suit and suddenly Louis is in the middle of a cuddle pile of about fifteen people. Everyone is swaying around and shouting things and it hits Louis that she’s going to miss this terribly.

Once people start entangling themselves Harry whistles with her fingers (damn, when did she learn to do that?) and raises her voice above the noise.

“Right, wrap party at mine tonight. Bring swimwear, I’m pretty sure the pool’s warm enough by now.”

 

\--

 

Louis pulls up her car in front of the address that Harry texted her and has to admit that she’s impressed. It’s a white, one-storey house with a lavish garden, enclosed by rose shrubs in full bloom. The garden continues behind the building, where Louis assumes the pool is. Guessing by the cars parked outside and the music playing in the back Louis isn’t the first to arrive.

After finishing up at the set Louis went home to change and get her bikini and a bottle of wine to give to Harry. (And probably drink herself, eventually, as parties usually go. It’s a cheap, rather sweet red, not something that Louis would usually bring as a gift, but Harry really likes it, so Louis got it for her anyway.). It’s been pleasantly warm the past couple of weeks and Louis opted for a skirt for once, one with a plaid pattern, and a white t-shirt tucked in. Harry got her the tee at a small second-hand boutique because she thought the little black ship printed on it over Louis’ heart was ‘ _cute, just like you, Lou’_ , and that fact has nothing to do with her choice. Louis was thinking of actually putting on makeup for once because it’s like, a party, but that plan went out of the window as soon as she remembered there’d be swimming involved. (She has not, however, no matter what kind of party she’s going to, even _considered_ shaving her legs. That would be entirely too out-of-character for her.)

She slings her bag around her shoulder and locks her car, then goes up to the front porch and rings the doorbell tentatively. A minute passes until the door opens, revealing a grinning Harry.

“Lou! Hey!” She hugs Louis, then pulls away and holds Louis at an arm’s length. “Love the outfit! You got your swim stuff?”

Louis nods but is at a loss for words for a moment. Harry’s wearing a small ( _very_ small) yellow bikini with only a sheer red robe over it in what seems to be an attempt of decency, but actually makes the whole outfit worse because Louis’ eyes are immediately drawn to where it’s hanging open in the front. The red colour contrasts beautifully with Harry’s light skin and Louis swallows at the sight of her slightly visible abs. Her eyes move a bit upwards and her breath catches in her throat.

Underneath the left yellow triangle of Harry’s bikini top a tattoo of a green and purple branch looks out. Harry literally got heather tattooed underneath her _boob_. As if the collection of tattoos on her arms isn’t enough for Louis’ eyes to get caught on whenever she’s wearing short sleeves, she had to go and get one at the one place that Louis really _doesn’t_ want to get caught staring at. Shit, Louis is _fucked_.

When she zones in again after coming to terms with the fact that Harry will be the death of her, the woman in question is happily chatting away about some dog she met on her way home. She seems to be slightly tipsy already, which reminds Louis of the wine in her bag. She waits until Harry has finished and then hands her the bottle

“Here, got you this.”

“Aw, Lou! You shouldn’t have!”

Louis smiles at that. “Don’t worry, I’m probably gonna drink it myself anyway.”

That makes Harry pout. “Share with me?”

Louis pats her cheek and moves past her into the entrance room. “Sure, maybe later. Where should I put my stuff?”

“Oh, just drop it anywhere.”

As Louis looks around she sees that there are several bags and shoes piling up already and she takes off her own vans and shoves her bag somewhere next to a fancy looking dresser “So, who do I have pay to get a drink here?”

Just then, Niall’s blonde head peers around the corner and exclaims, “Louis!” She bounces towards them and hugs Louis, then pulls her back into what Louis learns is a modern, sleek kitchen. “What do you want, beer, wine, something stronger?”

Louis laughs at her friend and tells her she’d like a beer. Niall is wearing a flowing white dress that’s see-through enough for Louis to see her black bathing suit underneath. The backwards snapback on her head slightly clashes with the rest of her outfit but Niall pulls it off effortlessly somehow. She hands Louis a cold beer, then pulls her through the airy living room, which consists half out of a giant couch in front of a flat screen and half out of glass walls showing the garden. Louis makes a mental note to tease Harry about the vinyl albums she spots on one of the shelves lining the walls before she’s pulled outside.

Louis stops on the threshold to take in the scene in front of her. The backyard is filled with a mix of people she knows from set, lounging around on the deck chairs around the pool or standing somewhere on the grass. Liam seems to have taken up the position at the barbeque, chatting away with one of the tech guys as he checks on the coals. Music is playing on the stereo in the living room.

Louis opens her beer as she joins the crowd and soon enough she finds herself in an engaged conversation with Maria and one of the production assistants, Emily, both already in their swim clothes. Her beer is halfway empty when an arm is slung around her shoulder and Harry’s flowery perfume fills her nose. She turns slightly and grins up at her friend, ignores the brown curls tickling her shoulder. Standing next to Harry is probably the most beautiful man Louis has ever seen (in her unbiased lesbian opinion), all long lashes and tattooed arms in a tank top.

“Lou, meet my best mate Zayn. He’s doing some of the soundtrack.”

Louis smiles and shakes Zayn’s hand. “Hi, I’m Louis.”

Zayn switches from brooding to snickering. “Oh, I know, believe me. Harry has told me all about you.”

Louis furrows her brow and looks back at Harry, whose cheeks are reddening. “Never mind, I’m gonna introduce you to Liam.”

“Harry,” Zayn says, rolling his eyes, then directs his next sentence towards Louis. “She’s been planning to set me up with this _Liam_ for ages now.”

Louis grins because she can feel that Harry’s on to something here, but replies, “I’ll come along and protect you from any matchmaking attempts. In fact, Harry can stay here and tend to her guests.”

Harry gasps beside her. “Are you betraying me?”

Louis turns to her and winks. “I could never.” Then she drags Zayn away, leaving Harry with Maria and Emily.

They find Liam talking to Niall near the backdoor. Louis makes the introductions and notes with a small smile the way that Zayn’s eyes linger on Liam and how Liam seems to be enthralled by Zayn’s tattoos. Soon enough, the four of them are amidst a conversation about Zayn’s music and what he has planned for the film and Louis is happy to see Zayn fit into their group like a missing puzzle piece.

She doesn’t know how long they’re talking but at some point Niall and Liam leave to get new drinks. Zayn pulls out a pack of cigarettes and offers one to Louis, who gratefully accepts because her skirt hinders her from carrying her own pack on her.

Zayn lights up his fag and then hands the lighter over. “So, you and Harry, huh?”

Louis lights up hers. “What about us?”

Zayn looks up from his cigarette and raises an eyebrow at Louis. “Nothing. Harry just talks a lot about you.”

Louis lets her eyes wander over the crowd until they land on the topic of their conversation. Harry is talking to Maria, a pink drink in her hand and still in her red robe. “Only good things, I hope.” _Play it cool_ , she thinks to herself. _This is Harry’s best friend; don’t make it too obvious that you’re halfway in love with her_.

“Oh, only the best. It’s good that we finally met so I could put a face to all the stories.”

Louis glances over at him and sees that he’s looking in Harry’s direction, as well. When she turns her head back to the crowd Harry is making her way over to them, all dimples and crinkly eyes. Her drink is empty, her steps slightly unstable and her hair curled around her head, glowing in the setting sun almost halo-like. She looks angelic and Louis bites her lower lip, but can’t stop it from twisting upwards into a smile.

“Hey, you two. You good?”

“Very.” Zayn is smiling at Harry fondly. Louis observes as he offers her his cigarette and Harry takes from him with practiced ease, taking a drag and then placing it between Zayn’s fingers again. They must’ve done this a million times and Louis pushes down the bitter feeling of wishing that it were her cigarette that Harry wrapped her lips around, which would be the closest that Louis could ever get to touching Harry’s lips with her own. This is not the place, or time. (Not that it’s ever the time for these kinds of thoughts. But if Louis can’t stop them then she’ll do her best to keep them inside the privacy of her bedroom.)

“Anyway,” Harry continues, “are you two gonna join me for a swim? The sun’s not gonna be up for much longer.”

While Zayn declines, Louis takes a last pull of her cigarette and stubs it out.

“Sure. I just gotta change first.”

Harry’s face lights up.

“I’ll come with. I need check on the food, anyway, and maybe have a glass of water while I’m at it. Will you be okay, Z?”

Zayn nods. “Sure, I’ll find someone to talk to me, don’t worry.”

Harry’s eyes twinkle. “Well, I’m pretty sure that Liam’s at the barbeque again, maybe that’s the someone you’re looking for.” With that, she takes Louis’ hand and pulls her towards the house with a laugh.

Once inside she tells Louis to get her bag and directs her into a room in the back of the house that’s obviously her bedroom. There’s a large bed with dark blue covers in the middle of it, fairy lights strung above its head, Polaroid pictures pinned to one of the walls. Most of the room is cleaned up, with an exception of the clothes spread out in front of the rather big closet, showing Harry’s process of choosing an outfit tonight.

“I’ll let you change, I’ll be in the kitchen when you’re finished.” Harry closes the door behind her as she leaves the room, leaving Louis alone in its silence. She changes quickly, pulling on her blue swim shorts and bikini top with the white dots. She folds her clothes into her bag and leaves it by Harry’s bed. Then curiosity gets the best of her and she has a look at the pictures on the wall, which are a mix of aesthetic photos of nature and architecture and snapshots of Harry’s friends and family. There’s one of Louis, Niall and Liam on break, laying on some beanbags they found on set one day, and another one of Louis alone in-between shelves of a bookshop Harry and her once went to on a Saturday. Louis wasn’t aware of either of these pictures being taken, and it makes her wonder how many more of them Harry has stashed away. She leaves the room and looks for Harry in the kitchen.

Harry has obviously been busy, setting out salads and bread and more drinks for everyone to enjoy and she hands Louis another beer when she enters. It might be Louis’ eyes deceiving her, but Harry’s eyes seem to get stuck on her ass a bit too long. Louis takes a big swig of her beer. She’s definitely too sober for all this.

Then Harry claps her hands together. “I’m all done. Shall we go?” She offers Louis an arm and Louis hooks her own through it with a grin.

“We shall.”

They move outside to the pool and Louis sees that a few others are already in the water, Niall included. The blonde waves at her and Louis takes another gulp of her beer, then sets the bottle away somewhere and jumps right in, making sure to soak Niall in the process. Niall catches on and starts splashing back at her, and then suddenly Liam’s next to Louis, dunking her head underwater.

When Louis comes up again she’s sputtering and swearing at Liam. He, in turn, is just smirking next to Niall, who’s doubled over laughing. When Louis finally gets the water out of her eyes she spots Harry sitting next to Zayn at the edge of the pool, him still in his denim shorts and tank top, her only in her yellow biking, both dangling their feet in the water and grinning at the scene in front of them. Even though they’re just casually chilling at a pool they look like a pair of freaking models, all great hair and tattoos (shit, Louis just remembered the heather tattoo and wants to _die_ ). It’s fucking disrespectful to all the average mortals out there.

Louis pouts. “I hate you all.”

Harry replies, “That’s okay. We hate you too.”

Louis just flips her off.

 

\--

 

Louis is sitting outside on a deck chair having a smoke with Zayn when Harry finds them.

Most of the guests have left, Harry just returning from seeing Maria and Emily off. (Despite them insisting that they’re only carpooling Louis is certain that they’re actually going home to fuck. She’s an actor; she can read body language, for fucks sake.) With them gone, there’s only Zayn, Niall, Liam and Louis left at Harry’s place. Niall and Liam are in the living room, playing with a guitar they found sitting around somewhere. Louis and Zayn have been sitting outside in silence, listening to their soft melodies, admiring the fact that the other two are actually pretty decent singers. Louis remembers one of her old voice coaches always saying that if you have control over your voice to speak properly while acting you can sing as well, but she suspects that the other two would sound good even without vocal training.

Harry sits down in the grass next to Louis’ chair and holds out her hand, middle finger and index apart. Louis takes the hint and hands her the cigarette. Harry takes a drag, one corner of her mouth slightly tilted upwards as she exhales the smoke and then passes the cigarette back. As Louis takes a pull herself Harry grabs the bottle of wine she brought with her outside – Louis’ wine – and sets it to her lips. She’s a sight like this, now wearing grey denim shorts similar to Zayn’s and a moss green blouse that’s barely buttoned up and makes her eyes shine even more than usual. Her head’s tilted back as she drinks and the cigarette hangs loosely between Louis’ fingers as she stares at the movement of Harry’s neck. Harry finishes and hands the bottle over to Louis, who accepts it wordlessly and takes a long swig from it before passing it along to Zayn without her eyes ever leaving Harry.

Harry, to her amazement, stares back at her the entire time. She looks celestial in the light coming through the windows of the living room and when her and Louis’ eyes meet time literally seems to stop, just like that first time Louis saw her, and she is still as amazed by Harry’s beauty as she was back then.

She continues staring, figuring that as long Harry is looking back it can’t be that bad, until her cigarette is plucked from her hand. When she manages to pull her eyes away from Harry and look over at Zayn he is stubbing out what’s left of her cigarette (which is really not much, he must’ve saved Louis from burning her fingers) on the stone tiles next to him with a smirk on his face. Instead of reacting to his raised eyebrow Louis just takes the bottle back and takes another gulp from it, then hands it to Harry and gets up on her feet.

“Well, I’m getting cold. You coming?”

Harry sends her an enquiring look, but stands up as well. “Sure, let’s get inside.”

 

\--

 

Louis doesn’t see much of Harry for the next couple of months.

She takes a short break first, spending two weeks holed up at home in Doncaster with her family before moving to her flat in London. There she spends July and August rehearsing for the production of a play that one of her mates from University wrote who managed to make a name for himself in the theatre scene. It’s an exhausting process and most evening she’s out cold as soon as her face hits the pillow, but it’s also incredibly fun. Louis loves acting in movies, but the stage will always have a special place in her heart because it’s where her career started.

Harry updates her regularly on the editing process of _Actually Star Light_. She does so mostly in the group chat that Niall created that night at Harry’s, adding Liam and Zayn as well as Louis and Harry because ‘ _I need a way to check on you all, don’t I?’_ The chat is mostly used for dumb jokes from Harry and pictures of Liam’s dog, with the occasional video of Zayn singing whatever song is stuck in his head. Niall and Louis fill the rest of it with stupid discussions about random topics they come up with in their private chat just to annoy the others. It’s fun, seeing what everybody’s up to now that they’re all apart, and it makes Louis look forward to promo season when she’ll see them all again. She does skype with all of them a few times, but everyone’s so busy that they usually leave it at texting and snapchatting.

Then rehearsals for the play are finished and Louis is on stage almost every night for two months. Both Niall and Zayn come to see her perform one Saturday, Niall because she’s visiting a friend in London and Zayn because he’s in the city for a collaboration with another popular singer. They come backstage after the show with an armful of yellow flowers (clearly Harry’s influence, always lecturing them about flower meanings and how great it is that yellow stands for friendship) and take Louis out for dinner. Despite Zayn’s hesitation at first Louis and Niall make sure to take a ton of selfies together. They spam the group chat with them, generating sad messages from both Liam and Harry expressing their remorse for not being able to join them and wishing them a nice evening.

The beginning of promo for the movie is scheduled for late October, two weeks after the play closes. Louis is flying out to LA the day after her last show so that she’s there for the first screening, along with Niall and Liam who are arriving around that time as well. They’re planning on spending the downtime before promo starts together and Louis is really looking forward to it. She’s also excited to spend time with Harry again after not seeing her in person for almost five months. Harry, bless her heart, offered that Louis stay at her house for the month that she is in LA because she doesn’t have a flat there anymore. Louis accepted the offer only with the condition that she pays for all the groceries and other expenses during the month. She hasn’t figured out yet how she’s going to survive living with Harry for such a long time, but she decides to take it one step at a time.

The Saturday evening of the last performance of the play everyone backstage is buzzing. As Louis gets her face powdered and her hair gelled up (she grew her buzz cut out so that it’s longer on top now and while most days she leaves it in a fringe it gets styled into a quiff for her role on stage) she checks her phone, which is blowing up with messages wishing her luck tonight. One message stands out from the rest and Louis can’t stop her face from breaking out in a smile.

 

**Harry Styles:** Got back the studio’s confirmation for the final cut today. Can’t wait for you to see it. Good luck tonight. H xx

 

She doesn’t have time to reply because someone tells her that her cue is in ten minutes and she spends them running around to find the headband she has to wear on stage and warming up her voice, and by the time she’s done with it the ten minutes are over and the curtains are lifted.

When she bounces off stage after curtain call, pumped up on adrenaline and shouting with the rest of the crew, there’s a bouquet of red roses sitting in her dressing room. A small card is stuck between them, obviously printed by the company that delivered the flowers, and Louis’ face spreads into a smile when she reads it.

 

_All the love, H._

 

Louis takes out her phone, takes a picture and lets her fingers hover over the keyboard for a minute before typing out a message.

 

**Louis Tomlinson:** thanks for these, cant wait to see you sunday xx

 

\--

 

The next morning, Louis wakes up to a throbbing head and a mouth about twice as dry as a desert. She groans, rolls over to her nightstand and squints at the screen of her phone, only to realise that it’s already twelve and that she really should get up if she wants to catch her flight to LA this evening.

It takes an aspirin, two cups of Yorkshire and several glasses of water to get her in some sort of functional state to start packing, which, in true Louis-style, she left to the last minute. Her manager Josephine calls her as she’s on her second tea and makes sure that everything’s sorted out for the journey and that Louis knows that she’ll have to get a taxi around four to make it to her flight on time. She also reminds Louis that during the next few weeks she’ll have to be more active on social media to properly promote herself and the movie.

Louis manages to pack all the clothes she thinks she’ll need the next few weeks in LA, cooks herself some pasta as a late lunch and checks that she has her headphones and charger. When the clock moves to four she grabs her suitcase and puts on her jacket, then goes downstairs where her taxi is waiting already.

Her flight is relatively uneventful. Louis tries to stay awake as long as she can so her jetlag will be as small as possible; the first screening of _Actually Star Light_ is on Monday morning, giving her about twelve hours in LA after arriving. She falls asleep when it’s about two in the morning London time and wakes up again when the plane has landed, six am London time and ten pm in LA. She’s groggy and tired, but thankfully her hangover is mostly gone as she goes through border control and waits for her luggage. She figures that because of her lack of sleep and the remains of her night out she should be mostly able to adapt to LA time quickly, also helped by the early time of tomorrow’s screening, which means that Harry will be up early as well. Once she is outside the airport she calls an uber and arrives at Harry’s house shortly after eleven, grabs her suitcase and knocks on the door.

Harry opens in sweatpants and a hoodie, wearing her hair up in a messy bun and her face in a smile. Before Louis knows what’s happening she is engulfed by long arms.

“Hey Lou,” Harry murmurs close to her ear.

Louis slings her arms around Harry and takes a deep breath, inhaling the smell of her shampoo and her detergent and something that she can’t place but is very distinctively _Harry_. “Hey you.”

Harry giggles and Louis feels her breath against her skin where Harry’s face is buried in her neck. “That rhymed.”

Louis hums and disentangles from the hug. “As much as I’d love to stay here, we should probably move off your porch.”

“Of course.” Harry grabs Louis’ suitcase and opens the door wide, revealing warm light from the kitchen and the scent of something freshly baked. “There’s fresh blueberry muffins, if you feel like it, and maybe some hot chocolate before bed?”

God, Louis missed this woman. She grins up at Harry as she answers, “That sounds lovely.”

 

\--

 

Louis wakes up to music and the smell of pancakes. The blinds of Harry’s guestroom are shut but a few rays of sunlight shine through, anyway, illuminating Louis’ legs tangled in the white sheets and her suitcase next to the double bed, clothes spread out from when she searched for her toothbrush yesterday evening.

Louis stays cuddled into her pillow for a few minutes, listening to Harry’s muffled singing along to pop songs. She’s on the brink of falling asleep again when the door opens a bit and Harry sticks her curly head through it. When she sees that Louis is awake she smiles and moves into the room.

“Morning.” Her voice is soft as she sits on the edge of the bed. Louis shuffles into a more upright position against the headboard and Harry hands her a mug of tea.

“Morning Haz.” Louis blows a bit on the tea, then takes a sip when she realises that it’s not boiling hot anymore.

Harry smoothes out the sheets on one side of her legs absentmindedly. She’s been growing her fringe out, Louis notices. It’s just long enough on the sides to tuck behind her ears, the middle part being held back by a hair clip at the moment. One of the shorter curls springs free from behind Harry’s ear and Louis itches to tuck it back, but Harry is faster and does it herself. “Did you sleep well?”

Louis nods, cradling her tea to her chest. “I did. Thanks again for letting me stay at yours.”

“It’s a pleasure, honestly. It’s nice having someone else in the house.” Harry grins and Louis’ eyes get transfixed on her right dimple for a moment.

She takes a sip of her tea to distract herself and then grins back at Harry. “Is that pancakes I smell?”

Harry huffs out a laugh. “It is. You’ll have to get up for them though.”

Louis groans theatrically, but presses her mug into Harry’s hands and rolls out of bed. She showered before going to bed yesterday evening, so she should still smell acceptable, Louis muses as she searches through her suitcase until she finds a pair of sweatpants that look good enough to wear out of the house. As she hops on one foot to pull them on she notices Harry is staring at her with a look of what Louis would classify as _awe_ or _amazement_ were it anyone other than Harry. But since this is her _purely platonic friend_ she’s more likely just dazing off and thinking of something else. Louis puts on a random t-shirt and then claps her hands together. Harry is looking at her in a perfectly normal way now, which only further proves Louis’ theory of her mind having been elsewhere. Pushing down her _totally absurd_ disappointment Louis gives her a hopeful look.

“Pancakes?”

“Lead the way,” Harry replies and gets up from the bed. Louis does just that, making her way towards the kitchen where Harry has set the table with a wide range of breakfast foods, going from orange juice to croissants to a bottle of maple syrup. Louis’ vision circles in on the two plates sitting opposite each other, each with a stack of pancakes on them.

She whistles under her breath. “Damn, you really outdid yourself.” A glance to Harry, who has stopped next to her in the doorway of the kitchen, reveals that her cheeks are dusted pink and that her bottom lip is tucked between her teeth.

“It’s nothing, really.”

Louis raises her eyebrow in doubt but doesn’t reply, choosing to sit down at the table instead. Harry settles down as well and soon they are both happily tucking in and chatting about this and that. The pancakes are just as good as they smelled from Louis’ bed and Harry’s company improves them even more. Before Louis knows it it’s time to clear up and get ready, then Harry is locking the door to her house and they’re both entering Harry’s car in the driveway.

The little cinema that was rented for today’s first official screening of _Actually Star Light_ is half an hour away from Harry’s house. They spend the drive talking about the movie and singing along to the radio. Louis remembers her manager’s instruction to be more active on social media and takes a video of her feet propped on the dashboard, then veers her phone towards Harry behind the wheel. She’s aware of the fact that Harry is a director that people Know Right Now, so it’s probably in everyone’s interest if she puts her on her account. Let it be said that Louis Tomlinson is great at fan service, and that it has nothing to do with her wanting some sort of documentation of this moment because Harry looks gorgeous in her pink polka dot blouse. After making sure that the video is okay she types out a quick caption and then puts her phone away and joins Harry in singing along to the song on the radio.

 

**louistomlinson:** on my way to see #ActuallyStarLight for the first time with @HarryStyles , very excited !!

 

\--

 

When the credits roll Louis remains in her seat, motionless.

She is aware of everyone around her getting up and applauding, aware of Niall’s loud voice shouting about how great that was into her ear, aware of the fact that there are unshed tears in her eyes. Her left hand has been clutching onto something tightly for the past ten minutes out of it’s own accord.

When she manages to somewhat wake out of her daze she realises that her knuckles are nearly white gripping Harry’s hand. Harry is running a thumb over the back of her hand and she’s staring at Louis intently.

“You okay?” Harry’s question is quiet in a room full of noise, meant only for Louis.

Louis blinks a few times, wipes her eyes with her free hand and takes a deep breath. A smile spreads across her face and Harry mirrors it immediately, dimples popping out and eyes crinkling.

Louis’ voice is raspy as she says, “Holy shit.”

“I take it you liked it?” Harry almost sounds smug, but her voice is mostly filled with pride.

Louis exclaims, “Liked it? Harry, it’s –“ She stops then, not knowing how to describe her feelings. She doesn’t think she’s ever seen a movie that discussed being a lesbian in today’s world so honestly while still being a rom-com with a happy ending. The cinematography and the editing are amazing and the music that Zayn composed sets the tone of every scene perfectly. Louis has been waiting for a movie like this all her life and the fact that she actually gets to be a part of it makes her emotional more than anything.

She knows that she won’t be able to put any of this into coherent sentences, though, so she settles on, “It’s fucking amazing, is what it is.”

Harry’s eyes soften as she looks at her and, even though she hasn’t actually said something, Louis thinks that she _understands_. She smiles at Harry and Harry smiles back, until a hand lands on her shoulder.

“We’re great, aren’t we?” Niall’s wide grin and shining eyes give off a bit of a crazy vibe, but Louis can’t help but laugh as they high-five. They really are great.

 

\--

 

Since it’s past noon most of the crew that was present at the screening ends up getting lunch together. The staff of the restaurant they go to looks slightly overwhelmed by the boisterous crowd of about twenty people entering, but collect themselves quickly and start pushing together tables to fit them all.

There’s a round of applause when Harry and Maria announce that the film company will pay for everything and soon wine and food are ordered in abundance. Louis talks to everyone around her, full of energy now that the she has processed her first impression of the movie. Her and Niall go over their favourite parts, Zayn tells them about one of the musicians that fucked up while recording the soundtrack, Liam and Louis mourn their matching buzz cuts (they might be slightly tipsy on wine at this point) and, most importantly, Harry stays at her side the whole time.

She’s not solely spending time with Louis, of course, because they both talk to people separately, but they sit next to each other and every now and then Harry will rest her arm on the back of Louis’ chair or lean closer to murmur a comment into her ear. When they leave the restaurant after finishing all of the wine and giving the staff a generous tip for putting up with them Harry puts a hand on the small of her back as she leads her outside. Most of the crew, including the two of them, aren’t walking entirely straight at this point and the alcohol is really not helping Harry’s already clumsy legs, but they laugh as they nearly walk into a table and struggle opening the door.

To sober up before either of them can drive home they decide to go on a stroll through the nearby park after saying goodbye to everyone. Niall shimmies between them and they link arms, walking in a line taking up the entire width of the pavement. A few other crewmembers who are still too tipsy to drive join them and Louis is glad that they are in Los Angeles, where the weather is still warm enough to go for a walk in the sun in October.

When everyone has sobered up enough they get back to their cars and say goodbye.

Niall pulls Harry and Louis into a hug tight hug and tells them, “I’m really proud of us, you know.”

Harry, a bit taller than the other two, presses a kiss to the top of each of their heads. “So am I.”

Louis hums in agreement and the air stays sober until Niall laughs, loud and joyful. “Well, I’ll see you both tomorrow.”

Louis pulls away, looking at her questioningly. “What’s tomorrow?”

It’s Harry who answers, “Oh, Niall invited herself and Zayn and Liam to hang out at mine.”

Niall grins and nods, her long blonde hair bouncing along with her movement. “Figured out that you need a day to recover from jetlag first, though.”

Louis’ smile is grateful. “’Till tomorrow, then.”

 

\--

 

Louis spends most the two weeks between that first screening and the official start of promo hanging out with various constellations of Niall, Zayn and Liam. Harry joins them whenever she can but is mostly busy putting finishing touches to the movie and its advertisement.

The group of them goes to the cinema and plays football in parks (Louis will never adapt and call it _soccer_ , no thank you), plays video games and holds movie nights together. It’s just the kind of break that Louis needed after the months of performing live, relaxing with friends and doing absolutely nothing if she doesn’t want to.

She regularly posts both about her excitement for the movie and her daily activities on social media, which her manager loves. Josephine sends her regular updates of what the press is saying about her and the movie, including that, to her big amusement, some people think that the fact that Louis is staying at Harry’s means that they’re a couple. Louis does not really find this as amusing because Harry is her _friend_ , after all (it has nothing to her stupid crush on Harry, no way). She ignores her feelings, though, and texts Harry a screenshot of one of the comments on a selfie of the two of them on Instagram that goes something like _‘there’s no way they’re not dating, i’m 100% sure theyre a thing’_. Harry replies five minutes later with a laugh-crying emoji and Louis’ heart breaks just a little.

(It doesn’t hurt as much anymore when Harry comes home that night with pizza, a bottle of wine to share and a blinding smile. They cuddle up together on the sofa, reminiscent of the first evening they hung out, and watch a random rom-com recommended on Netflix. Towards the end of the movie Harry kisses Louis’ shoulder before resting her head on it and stays there until they go to bed. Louis is still smiling when she falls asleep.)

 

\--

 

The promo for _Actually Star Light_ is how promo always is, only on a bigger scale than what Louis is used to: long, tedious days, the same seven questions being asked over and over again and interviewers trying to be ‘fun’ by playing games that are, well, actually not fun at all. Louis is aware that it could be worse because she gets to spend most of the interviews with Niall and Liam and she really loves talking about the movie, but even that can only motivate her so much to answer _‘tell me about your character and explain to me what the movie is about without actually giving away spoilers’_ for the thousandth time.

(She does do an interview with Ellen, which, you know, is insane. Ellen gushes on about her excitement for the movie and Louis spends half of the interview getting to terms with how surreal her life has become. There are a few quips about her relationship with Harry, which Louis manages to turn into jokey remarks. When she’s done Ellen knocks on the door of her dressing room and tells her that she really is looking forward to seeing the movie and expresses her solidarity with Louis being an out lesbian. Louis hugs her in gratitude and it feels a bit like hugging your fairy godmother.)

The process is exhausting and most nights her and Harry, who usually is in different interviews than Louis, don’t have enough energy to do much more than eat dinner and then fall into their beds. Still, it’s a hundred times better this way than it would be if Louis would be staying alone somewhere.

Then, after Louis has lived with Harry for almost a month, the movie premieres.

The scale of the red carpet is overwhelming for Louis, who so far has only done smaller indie productions that usually don’t include about a hundred photographers and famous celebrities and screaming fans. Louis is glad that she let her stylist (she has a personal stylist now, how insane is that?) pick a grey suit and comfortable dress shoes She’s sure that she’d slip and reveal her underwear to the whole world if she was wearing a dress and heels. She is actually wearing makeup for once, mostly just foundation and powder for the lights and some light eye shadow and mascara, but it’s a lot compared to what she usually wears. The hair that she let grow out for her play is shaved off again, leaving her with about a centimetre of smooth stubble. (When she came back after getting the haircut yesterday Harry stared at her for a couple of seconds and then spent the rest of the day running her hands over Louis’ head as often as she could. Louis doesn’t want to misinterpret anything, but she thinks it’s safe to say that Harry loves the stubble. She did not grin into her pillow for ten minutes before falling asleep, of course not. That would be strange.)

She’s giving a short interview to one of the journalists outside after getting her official pictures taken when Harry arrives.

The crowd screams a bit louder than it did the minutes before and Louis’ head turns instinctively. She’s aware of the fact that she’s on camera so she does her best not to let her jaw drop, but it’s hard given the sight in front of her.

It seems that Harry has opted for a suit as well, red with some kind of floral print and, knowing Harry, probably Gucci. It accentuates her long legs and the strappy high-heels she’s wearing make them even longer, which makes Louis’ situation even worse. The black blouse she’s wearing underneath her suit jacket is unbuttoned to the point where it’s barely decent and her brown locks flow over her shoulders, a few of the short ones framing her face. In short, she looks gorgeous and Louis once again realises that she is two things: really gay and really, really fucked.

 

\--

 

The premiere itself is a hit and everyone loves the movie. The cast and crew celebrate appropriately, practically drowning themselves in alcohol and dancing through the night. This leads to Harry and Louis spending the next day on the sofa with bottles of water at the ready and the curtains closed. The curtains are white and mostly transparent, and Louis spends about twenty minutes cursing past-Harry who picked them out because they were, like, _cute_ or something.

It’s weird how, even if they don’t really do anything all day and Louis’ head feels as if someone hit it with a hammer repeatedly, she still has a good time. It might be Harry’s soft laughter as they imagine how Niall, who had about twice as much alcohol as Louis last night, must be feeling right now, or the strands of hair that escaped Harry’s messy bun and are now curling around her face, or her legs sprawled over Louis’ lap at one point, but something about the situation makes Louis feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

It makes it even worse when they have to say goodbye after flying back to England two days later. While Louis is planning on spending a few days with her family before the London premiere Harry will stay in London with her sister for the week and when they get to the arrival hall of Heathrow airport they have to part ways to get in their separate trains. Before Louis walks to her platform she sets down her luggage and throws her arms around Harry, pulling her as close as she can. Harry buries her face in Louis’ neck as she hugs back and they stay clinging to each other like that for a couple of minutes. Then Louis breathes in deeply, lets go and grabs all of her stuff. She smiles at Harry and tells her that they’ll see each other in less than a week. Harry kisses her forehead in return and then Louis is on halfway down the corridor, giving a small wave to Harry before she turns around to board her train.

 

\--

 

Louis spends a few days at home, sleeping off her jetlag and hanging out with her siblings. Her and Harry text daily, sending each other anecdotes of their families and pictures of their siblings and pictures of random funny things they encounter during their day. Lottie teases Louis every time she’s looking at her phone and calls her out whenever she’s got her _Harry-face_ on, which, Louis has to admit, is usually when she has been thinking of or texting the other woman.

The premiere in London is great because even though it has only been a week it’s still feels like it’s been ages since she last saw everyone. Since they are in England and it’s November it is raining and everyone has to walk the red carpet with umbrellas, but when Louis spots Niall they both drop theirs and jump into each other’s arms, yelling about having missed each other and how hard it has been the past week. Louis is in another suit today, a classic black one that makes her ass look amazing, and Niall’s black dress is skin-tight and right now they’re probably the best-looking pair around. She tells Niall this, who in turn proceeds to shout, “Best-looking pair in the whole bloody world, mate!”

Someone chuckles next to them and when they turn they see Harry, wearing a long green dress and having her hair in a braid, looking just as good as last time. Louis exchanges a look with Niall, and then they’re pouncing Harry, almost making them all tumble to the floor. Going by the increased volume of screaming from the crowd as Harry presses kisses to Niall and Louis’ cheeks the fans love it. Louis can already see the headlines tomorrow proclaiming _‘director in love-triangle with stars of gay movie?’_ but she frankly does not care and holds on to her friends until Emily drags them apart because _‘you’re all going to get pneumonia if you keep standing in the rain, for fucks sake’_.

The premiere itself is similar to the one in LA and soon enough Louis finds herself at the after-party, a glass of whisky in one hand and Harry’s handbag in the other because the woman went the bathroom and didn’t want to take it with her. Louis is listening to some random movie critic rave on about how much he loved the movie when Harry sidles up to her again, wrapping one arm around her waist and hooking her chin over her shoulder as she introduces herself to the critic. Louis feels her body go rigid for a second but then forces it to relax again because this is a _perfectly normal thing_ to do between friends.

The critic talks to them some more and Louis can tell that he’s enraptured with Harry’s charm and seems to not have realised that she is, in fact, very much Not Into Men. After a few minutes Harry apologises herself, and in consequence Louis, because she wants to get a drink. Louis stifles a laugh as the critic’s face falls in disappointment at the obvious disinterest (at least in that way) and lets Harry drag her to the bar where she orders some fancy, too-sweet-looking cocktail by a name that Louis has never heard of. Louis orders another whisky for herself, and then Niall appears at her side with Liam and Zayn in toll, ordering two rounds of shots for all of them to _get this party started_.

It doesn’t take long for them to get way past the point of tipsy. Louis has lost of count of how many shots and other drinks she’s had, but the room has gotten decisively warmer and the lights have started to blur together. There’s a glass in her hand and when she takes a sip from it she realises that it’s one of Harry’s sugary cocktails and that she actually enjoys the taste of it. Huh, that’s interesting.

She’s trying to get her drunken head around this new discovery when her nose is suddenly filled with the scent of Harry’s perfume and a voice is murmuring into her ear, “Dance with me?”

She turns around to face Harry, whose eyes are slightly glazed and whose hair is loosened from the braid she had when she arrived today, now in all its curly glory. Louis grins and takes a big gulp from the cocktail, then sets the glass down on a random table and pulls Harry towards the dance floor.

There are quite a lot of people on it and most of them (who is Louis kidding, everyone) are intoxicated at least as much as Louis. She drags Harry a bit more into the crowd and starts moving along to the beat, aware of the fact that she’s probably not actually _on beat_ but way past the point of caring. Harry joins her and they hop around together, singing the lyrics of the songs they know and pretending to badly lip-sync along to those they don’t recognise. Harry pulls her close during one song, extends their hands in a waltz position and leads Louis around the dance floor, more skipping than actually dancing, and Louis can’t stop giggling as she clings onto Harry for dear life.

They come to a sudden stop when the song changes, both breathing heavily. Harry’s eyes are shining and her smile is so bright it’s almost blinding and Louis guesses that she probably looks similar. She stares at the other woman, caught up in how breathtakingly, stunningly beautiful Harry is, even with messy hair and smudged makeup – or maybe because of it, Louis is not sure. She’s so entranced by Harry that she doesn’t even notice that Harry is staring back at her at first, mouth slightly open and eyes flicking all across Louis’ face, taking in every detail. It feels as though time freezes and for a split-second Louis thinks Harry might lean down and press their lips together.

Then Harry is pulling away with a breathless laugh and the moment is over as fast as it came. Louis vaguely registers her saying something about getting another round of shots with Niall and follows her through the crowd looking for their friend.

She stays in her daze until they’re at the bar and there are three pink shots lined up in front of them and Niall claps her shoulder, slurring her words a bit as she asks, “You okay mate?”

Louis nods, takes a breath and grabs the shot in front of her, holding it up for the others to clink theirs against.

“Let’s to this.”

 

\--

 

The next few weeks pass in a blur.

Louis’ days are filled with interviews and radio appearances and one or two photo shoots for magazines. It’s a good thing, too, because being this busy keeps her from having a crisis about how utterly in love she is with one of her best friends and how utterly _not_ in love said best friend is with her.

She sees Harry at a couple of the events and neither of them mentions anything of that night, both ignoring the fact that they almost kissed, and Louis does everything she can to not let her fucked up feelings get between their friendship.

Then the interviews are dwindling down and Harry drives up north to spend a much-needed break with her family. She texts Louis regularly and they even manage to facetime a few times and Louis gets used to the thought that despite all of her messed up feelings she can still have Harry in her life as a friend.

The nominations for the Golden Globes are announced in the middle of December and Louis spends about an hour jumping around her flat after waking up because _she’s fucking nominated for Best Actress, what the actual FUCK?_

In total, _Actually Star Light_ is nominated in four categories, namely _Best Actress, Best Director, Best Supporting Role_ for Niall and _Best Original Song_ for one of Zayn’s songs. Louis’ phone is flooded with congratulating texts, including one from Harry telling her how proud she is, to which Louis replies with an _‘uh, likewise?!! xx’_. Niall calls Louis around noon and they spend another fifteen minutes on the phone screaming at each other.

Louis herself leaves London the week before Christmas to spend the holidays with her family. There, she is charged with wrapping gifts for her little siblings and making several trips to the shops to get enough food to feed an army in preparations for Christmas dinner. While this is stressful and tiring it’s also great to be back home. She posts a picture of their Christmas tree on Instagram and Harry leaves a comment consisting only of the alien and the banana emoji, which makes the fans freak out over some kind of secret code and Louis laugh at Harry’s randomness.

On the morning of her 26th birthday Louis wakes up to several texts from her friends, including one from Niall ( _hbd lou u old fuck!!! enjoy ur cake!_ followed by about fifty balloon emojis), two from Liam ( _happy birthday louis!_ and _here have a pic of my dog_ ) and one from Zayn ( _hbd mate. wishing you all the best xx_ ). The messages make Louis smile, but when she reaches the bottom of her notification there’s one sent at 12:01 last night and Louis blushes only a bit as she reads it.

 

**Harry Styles:** Happy Birthday, Louis. Have a good one. All the Love, H xx

 

\--

 

The rest of the holiday is over quickly and soon it’s New Year’s Eve and Louis finds herself outside some random pub with some of her old childhood friends, counting down the seconds until midnight.

When they reach zero everyone starts cheering, knocking glasses together and exchanging hugs and kisses and Louis gets swept up in the middle of the celebration, wishing everyone a Happy New Year and doing a shot with Stan because _‘we have to start this year properly, Lou!’_

She checks her phone thirty minutes past midnight when most people have moved inside again and she’s having a smoke outside the pub. The group chat she has with Harry and the others, which is named _Gay Actually_ at the moment due to Harry watching _Love Actually_ on Christmas and getting inspired, is filled with everyone wishing each other a Happy New Year. Just when Louis reads through the messages and types one out one herself Harry sends a picture. Louis opens it and huffs a surprised laugh as she sees the slightly blurry snapshot of Liam and Zayn kissing against a wall. Harry attaches an _‘it’s finally happening!!’_ and Louis replies with _‘!!!!’_ before opening up her and Harry’s private chat. As a flurry of excited exclamations from Niall pop up in her notifications she types out something just for Harry.

 

**Louis Tomlinson:** happy new year, haz xxx

**Harry Styles:** Happy New Year to you too, Lou. xx

 

\--

 

The next day, Louis is nursing her hangover on the couch in the living room when she receives a text from Harry in their group chat.

 

**Harry Styles:** Hey Everyone xx. So I know that a few of you will be in LA the next weekend for the Globes (!!) but here a quick info in advance: My birthday is coming up and I was thinking that we could spend a few days around it in my family’s cottage in the French alps to ski and relax a bit and stuff. I think after being nominated for a Globe we deserve it. Tell me on Sat. if you’re interested, we’ll figure out the logistics then. Love you all, H xx.

**Harry Styles:** Maria and Emily are coming as well btw. We’d be seven in total.

 

Louis texts Josephine about her schedule for the next month and gets a green light for the week around Harry’s birthday in return. Her next project is a movie in which she has a supportive role as the quirky neighbour of a ballet dancer and rehearsals start only in mid-February. After the Globes she will have to stay in LA for a week for some magazine shoots and interviews, but apart from that she’s free. Louis feels her hangover ebb away with every minute that she thinks about how awesome that week is going to be as she texts her response in their group chat. (Okay, she’s exaggerating a bit. Her head is still killing her and she probably won’t move for the next few hours. But she’s still excited.)

 

**Louis Tomlinson:** hell yeah im in !!!!

 

\--

 

Louis flies to LA for the Golden Globes and reunites with everyone. She and Niall are staying at the same hotel and they meet up to have another shouting match about how insane their lives are and how excited they are for tonight. Then they have to get to their respective stylists to be ‘beautified’ and promise to hang out tonight at one of the several after-parties they’re both invited to.

Louis gets dressed up in another black suit with a white dress shirt underneath. Her hair gets shaved to a perfectly even buzz again and after the make-up artist is done her lashes look almost as long as Zayn’s and her cheekbones (which are normally already great) look like they were carved from marble. In short, Louis looks fucking amazing and she is _so_ ready for tonight.

Walking the carpet at getting her picture taken is, well, nerve-wracking. There are about a million photographers and assistants running around in panic and actors and celebrities wearing beautiful outfits and glittering diamonds that would make anyone star struck – she walks past _Leonardo freaking DiCaprio_ giving an interview and she’s pretty sure she just saw Meryl Streep in the corner of her eye – and Louis is entirely overwhelmed.

It gets a bit better when Harry arrives.

She is wearing another suit, black like Louis’, with a dress shirt that has hearts drawn all over it, and in contrast to Louis’ flats Harry is wearing heeled boots and her legs look infinite. Louis spends the time it takes for Harry to get her picture taken staring in awe from the side, fully aware that this is probably going to be all over the Internet later and that Harry is her friend and she should get herself together. Sue her, she hasn’t seen Harry in a month and her friend is dressed to the nines and it’s all just not fair.

Her peaceful drooling is rudely interrupted by some assistant telling her that they’d like her to take pictures with Harry and, well, Louis is not one to complain so she follows the woman right to Harry’s side. Harry greets her with a wide smile that Louis mirrors and lays an arm around her waist as they pose for the photographers. To Louis’ delight their suits match perfectly and if she didn’t know any better she’d say that it was planned. She can’t wait to look at the pictures tomorrow; the two of them must look gorgeous right now.

Harry bends her head a bit forward and murmurs into her ear, “Hey, you.”

Louis smiles for the cameras and leans a bit more into Harry’s side. She’s barely moving her mouth as she answers, “Hello, Haz.”

Then Harry’s hand slips a bit lower on Louis’ side to the exact spot where Louis is the most ticklish and Louis bursts out in a surprised laugh. The devious grin on Harry’s face tells her that she knew exactly what she was doing.

Louis lightly boxes her shoulder but can’t hide her smile. “Asshole.”

The smile she receives in return is more brilliant than any of the jewellery worn tonight.

 

\--

 

Louis doesn’t win, in the end.

The price goes to Meryl Streep and, while she is slightly disappointed when her name isn’t read from the card, she still thinks that even being nominated in the same category as Meryl fucking Streep is insane.

Louis doesn’t win, and neither do Niall or Harry. Zayn’s song does, however, and they all get up to their feet and whistle as he kisses Liam straight on the lips, high-five him before he goes on stage and applaud louder than anybody else in the room after his speech.

 

\--

 

They all go to the same after-party and get spectacularly drunk together.

Louis doesn’t remember a lot of the night, mostly just blurred together images of colourful lights and dancing with her friends and doing shots with more people than she can count. (People know her, now, and it’s weird because _they_ come up to _Louis_ and not the other way round.) Zayn passes his Globe around until they all decide that it’s probably best if he gives it his chauffeur so that he doesn’t lose it. Then they do more shots, and dance more, and have another round of cocktails until everything merges together.

There’s only one moment that Louis remembers as clear as crystal the next day.

She’s on the dance floor again, jumping around with a random cute girl that has been making eyes at her all night. Louis knows she’s going to have to let her down at the end of the night because she’s stupidly crushing on her friend, but for now she’s happy where she is, singing along to the music and letting the alcohol take a hold of her. She’s dancing and it’s fun and the girl (Emma? Lenora?) looks as if she’s about to move even closer into Louis’ space when someone sidles up to Louis from behind. Hands come up to rest on her waist and Louis recognises Harry’s perfume and the drag of her locks over Louis’ neck. She vaguely registers the girl’s face fall, but in her drunken haze she doesn’t really take notice of it. Instead, she turns around with a grin and slings her arms around Harry’s neck.

They dance like that, tangled together, not knowing where one begins and the other ends. Louis is marvellously drunk and Harry’s glazed eyes and wide smile prove that she’s just as intoxicated as they sway around. Then there’s that moment again, the moment of eye contact and complete stillness and everything around them stopping for a few seconds. Louis wants to lean up and press their lips together _so badly_ but she can’t get her body to respond and she’s frozen like this with her arms slung around Harry.

And then there’s a beat drop in the song and then everyone’s jumping around and then they’re jostled from their embrace and then the moment is over. They both blink a few times as if they’ve just awoken from a trance, and then they’re jumping along with everyone else and it’s as if nothing happened.

 

\--

 

As Louis is known to do with this kind of situation, she ignores it completely.

She stays in LA for the next week, doing promo stuff and getting in contact with the director of her next film. Then she returns to her flat in London, starts rehearsing for the movie, gets outfits fitted, attends meetings about brand deals and frequents the gym with her personal trainer. She’s been training for a while now because she needs to build up more muscles for her new role and it pains her to say so but the training is actually fun. (Mostly. Nobody in their right mind would find push-ups a fun activity. Except for maybe Harry, but she’s insane like that and Louis is still doing her best to avoid any thoughts about her.)

She gets a new tattoo, a small triangle on her ankle that she’s wanted for ages. She sends a picture of it to their group chat and gets a lot of excited feedback from everyone. Harry sends a pic of a rose tattooed on her forearm and adds that she got it last week. It’s a gorgeous design and Louis falls in love with it immediately.

The week before Harry’s birthday, and in extend their week in the French Alps, the Oscar nominees are revealed. Niall spent the last few nights in London at Louis’ flat and they set an alarm to wake up on time to see the reveal. Then they sit together on the couch, holding hands tightly enough to cut off their blood circulation as they refresh the homepage. The text appears and Louis’ eyes fly over it and then they’re both lying in each other’s arms screaming.

They’re both nominated again for _Best Actress_ and _Supporting Actress_ respectively, and Harry’s up for another _Best Director_ , but most of all the movie is up for _Best Picture_ and Louis can’t believe this is her life.

 

\--

 

The trip to France is a flurry of reunions with Emily and Maria, who Louis hasn’t seen since the premiere in London, confusing airports, Liam stressing out because he seems to be the only responsible person in the group, someone almost losing their luggage and then first a train and then a bus drive until they arrive in a small village somewhere in the French Alps. Small meaning that it has a post office and a small shop and one or two restaurants and that’s pretty much it besides the ski lift. It’s charming though, quiet and snow-covered. The cottage of Harry’s family is only a few minutes on foot from the bus station away and they trot uphill with their luggage, all glad when finally arrive after a day of travelling.

It’s cosy inside, all wooden walls and cute pictures hung on the walls. The heating’s already turned on thanks to one of the neighbours that Harry contacted and they all peel out of their coats and make their way upstairs to have a look at the bedrooms. There’s four in total, all furnished with a double bed. Zayn and Liam put their stuff in one and Emily and Maria head towards another. Niall calls dibs on getting the solo one, which leaves Louis and Harry. Harry turns to Louis with a shrug and a smile and Louis decides that she’s going to die this week anyway, so she can just go and give herself the killing shot by sharing with Harry.

 

\--

 

What is still left of the afternoon is over quickly. Harry, Liam and Emily make a short trip to the shop to stock up on some food while the other four dig through the collection of board and card games in the house. When the others return someone cooks up a quick dinner and they’re in bed pretty soon after that. Louis and Harry bustle around their room a bit awkwardly until both of them are ready. When they both snuggle under the covers Harry wishes Louis a good night and soon enough, she’s breathing is in a regular rhythm. Louis fears that it’s going to take ages for her to fall asleep in such close proximity to Harry, but either Harry makes her more comfortable than she’s aware of or the exhaustion of the day is kicking in because she’s asleep soon after.

 

\--

 

The next morning, they all go down to the little ski shop and rent skis for the rest of the week. They spend the first two days using them to the fullest, trying out all the slopes of the little ski lift and enjoying the snow. The conditions aren’t perfect, the snow already a bit soft in the afternoon and, because it hasn’t snowed in a while, a bit patchy at places. They don’t really care, though, because it’s more snow than any of them have seen in years in London or LA, so they’d be excited about any kind of white fluff.

The evenings are spent playing board games and watching movies that they find in a cupboard in the living room. It’s fun to spend this much time with friends and without any distraction through the Internet (reception is terrible up here). When they go to bed at night Louis usually has some kind of gay crisis about Harry’s gorgeous legs when she’s changing or her luscious curls when she brushes them out (although they’re not quite as luscious after spending two days under a ski helmet).

Then, on the third day, the day before Harry’s birthday, they wake up to it snowing. There are already a few centimetres of new snow on the balcony and by the look of the grey sky and the steadily falling flakes it’s not going to stop any time soon.

Most of the group decides that they don’t really feel like going out in this weather but Harry and Louis exchange one look and a grin before announcing that they will _definitely_ go out in this weather.

So, after breakfast, they bundle up and head out to face the snow with big smiles on as the others shake their heads at their sheer dumbness.

 

\--

 

They get home a little after noon, the snow now too strong for even them to stay out any longer. As Louis gets busy opening her ski boots she glances up to see Harry take off her helmet and thread her fingers through her fuzzy hair. For a second Louis wishes that she could just move a few steps over and run her hand through those soft brown locks and – she stops herself there and focuses on getting her skiing clothes off. Thanks to the fifty layers that Harry insisted she’d put on this morning and the fact that she spent all morning being active she’s not actually that cold, but her nose is red from the frost and a few strands of hair falling out of her helmet might actually be frozen.

They leave their clothes out to dry and quickly go up to their room to change into trainers and hoodies and fuzzy socks before going downstairs again to find the others. They seem to be involved in a serious game of Uno, apart from Emily, who’s standing at the stove heating up soup for lunch while occasionally adding remarks to the others’ conversation over her shoulder. Soon enough, Niall grins as she lays down a blue seven and then immediately starts yelling about her victory.

Suddenly the room is filled with movement as everyone gets up to put away the cards and set the table. When they’re all seated and shovelling soup into their mouths they ask Harry and Louis all about their morning on the slopes and the two of them happily recount their adventures of the fog and the wind blowing snow in their faces and Louis getting stuck in the snow and Harry having to rescue her – well, Harry happily tells this story. Louis just sits next to her grumbling about stupid snow and stones and tall curly assholes that make fun of her.

After lunch, they move over to the living room and pile onto the couches and armchairs and the floor in front of the TV. Louis claims the comfiest sofa for her and Harry and is proud to say that she actually manages to watch the first ten minutes of the film (something about a car chase and expensive watches and very obvious product placement) before falling asleep next to Harry under their heap of blankets.

 

\--

 

Louis wakes up with a start, feeling disoriented and a bit dizzy. She starts to move, but quickly realises that the weight on her shoulder is not a pillow but Harry’s head, the curls escaping her bun tickling Louis’ neck. As she looks at the peaceful look on her friend’s face she lets herself sink back into the cushions and exhales.

She spots Zayn curled up in one of the armchairs then. There’s a book in his lap but it’s abandoned as he’s obviously watching the two of them on the sofa. When Louis catches his eye he just smiles softly and then turns back to his book. Weird.

As she takes in the rest of the room without turning her head so she doesn’t wake Harry she notices that it’s empty except for the three of them. She hears quiet voices from the kitchen but both the TV screen and the mountains outside the window behind it are dark. She must’ve slept for at least three hours, which makes sense given her exhaustion from the morning but will probably make her hate herself tonight when trying to sleep.

Louis dozes on for a while, listening to the rhythm of Harry’s breathing next to her. After a few minutes Harry starts moving a bit and then opens her eyes, looking up at Louis.

A soft, sleepy smile spreads over her face and Louis feels her insides melt to puddles.

“Hi.”

Despite internally freaking out about how deep Harry’s voice sounds right now she manages to smile back at her and reply with a _Hey_.

Harry blinks a few times, then, and seems to realise that they are almost alone in the room. “Where is everybody?”

“I don’t know, a few of them are in the kitchen, I think. We slept through the movie, though.”

Harry huffs a laugh at that and then looks over to the third party in the room. “Hey Zayn, what time is it?”

Zayn looks at his wristwatch. “Nearly five. You were asleep for like, three hours.”

Harry groans. “We’re never gonna sleep tonight, are we?”

“Nope. At least you can keep each other company.” Zayn’s grin is far too smug for Louis’ taste and for a second, it almost looks as though Harry’s cheeks slightly redden at Zayn’s remark, but Louis figures that it’s probably just a trick of the light. She claps her hands together, disturbing the quiet atmosphere.

“Well, I’m gonna check on the others.”

She disentangles herself from the nest they have managed to build on the sofa, which is more difficult than it sounds, and then makes her way over to the kitchen. As she looks back one more time she sees Harry’s eyes following her from where she’s still sprawled out on the sofa and feels her cheeks heat up. She quickly turns around and goes to join Niall and Liam at the kitchen table in whatever card game they are playing tonight.

 

\--

 

They have dinner around seven, play a few rounds of card games, share a box of chocolate cookies and then decide to head off to their separate rooms because everyone’s pretty tired and they have an excessive program planned out for tomorrow in Harry’s honour.

Louis grabs a shower and makes sure not to take too long so that Harry still has enough hot water to wash her hair later. She puts on her pyjama bottoms and a hoodie she stole it from Harry that she practically swims in and absolutely does _not_ bury her nose in the soft material because it smells like Harry.

After taking a few steadying breaths she returns to their room and tells Harry that the shower is free, but the other woman seem to not hear her, eyes fixed on Louis’ sweater. Louis suddenly wonders if she overstepped an invisible line by taking it.

“Oh, yeah, I borrowed this. Hope that’s okay?”

Harry finally drags her eyes away from the hoodie and looks at Louis’ face. Her cheeks are flushed more than usual. “Oh, yeah, sure. Looks – looks good on you.”

Then she’s up with an armful of clothes and out of the room before Louis has had enough time to process what she just said.

When she realises what just happened she lets herself fall face first onto the bed. Friends do that, don’t they? Compliment each other? She’s reading too much into this and Harry was just being nice and Louis and her stupid infatuation with her friend fucked up and made it awkward. (She won’t call it love, thank you very much. Of course she’s not in love with Harry. That would be simply ridiculous.)

She’s still lying sprawled out on the bed starfish-style when Harry returns and she only slightly turns her head where it’s buried in a pillow. (Harry’s pillow. It smells like her. Shit, Louis needs to get her act together _immediately_.) Harry’s hair seems mostly dry, so she must’ve blown-dried it a bit. She’s putting it up in a bun and Louis gets distracted for a moment by the sliver of skin revealed as Harry’s shirt rides up a bit. She groans loudly, rolls over to her side of the bed and opens her book to try to occupy her thoughts with something other than _holy fuck I want to snog you senseless and do R-rated things to you but also wake up next to you every morning and take you out for dinner and kiss you goodnight_.

She sneaks a glance in Harry’s direction and finds her already looking back with a small smile on her face. Louis blushes and looks down at her book and then, after a few seconds, back at Harry, who’s grinning widely now.

“You good?”

Louis blushes even more. Shit. Distraction. She closes her book again.

“I’m not gonna sleep for a while. Wanna play scrabble?”

Harry’s dimples are enough for an answer.

 

\--

 

Harry makes them hot chocolate and they play scrabble for almost an hour, with Harry winning spectacularly and Louis trying to spell out every swearword possible. Louis pouts whenever her words aren’t accepted and Harry breaks out in giggles every few minutes and it’s soft and relaxed and Louis can’t stop smiling.

When they finish playing Louis gets up, stretching her back. “I’m going outside for a smoke. Wanna come?”

Harry nods and goes to the coatrack to get her jacket. “Of course.”

They bundle up in layers because it’s several degrees Celsius below zero and head out onto the little patio.

“Look, the sky’s cleared up,” Harry says. “Maybe we’ll see a shooting star, what do you think?”

Louis lights up a cigarette. A glance at her phone screen tells her that it’s about five minutes until midnight, and she thinks that if anyone deserves a shooting star on the night of their birthday it’s Harry.

They pass the cigarette back and forth in silence until it’s burned down. Louis stubs it out in the snow and looks up at the night sky. The clouds of the day are gone and the crisp, clear air reveals hundreds of stars, most of which Louis didn’t even know existed. The moon is almost full and illuminates the white world below it far brighter than it ever could in London or LA. It makes Louis feel infinitely small.

With her eyes still directed upwards she whisper, “It’s beautiful.”

Harry’s voice is just as low as she replies, “It really is.”

Louis glances over and finds Harry already looking at her, staring so intensely that Louis feels her cheeks flush from more than just the cold. It’s then that she realises how close they’re standing, arms touching, close enough that their breath almost mingles. Louis looks up at Harry and steps even closer, thinks, _this is it, after this there will be no turning back._

“Lou-“

“Harry-“

They begin at the same time, then stop abruptly. Louis huffs a laugh. The corner of Harry’s mouth twitches, but then their eyes and Louis’ breath catches in her throat.

There’s a moment that feels like an eternity, then Louis rocks to her tiptoes and presses her lips to Harry’s.

The touch is unbelievably soft, unmoving, and for a second Louis is afraid that she misread the situation, starts to pull back and apologise when Harry tilts forward ever so slightly, raising her hands to cradle Louis’ face and Louis exhales a soft _oh_ as she feels Harry’s lips move against hers.

They kiss.

They kiss for what feels like hours, days, weeks even, and at the same time only a few seconds. They kiss slow and gentle but still so urgent, not wanting to lose a single second more of not knowing what the other person tastes like, feels like, moves like under their fingers. Harry tastes of chocolate and the cigarette they shared and a hint of mint toothpaste and Louis gets lost in her soft mouth. Her fingers end up in Harry’s hair and Harry is still holding her face with one hand and pulling her infinitive times closer as she wraps an arm around Louis’ waist. They kiss until their lips are swollen and their fingers are freezing from the cold air, and even when they stop their faces remain close enough for Louis to count Harry’s eyelashes as they flutter and for the clouds of their breath to mix together indistinguishably.

They stay like that until Louis realises that she can’t feel her toes anymore and pulls away a bit. Harry opens her eyes, then, and a blinding smile enfolds on her face. She runs her thumb over Louis’ cheekbone and traces a few of the crinkles in the corner of her eyes that appeared without Louis noticing.

“You know,” Harry begins, voice low. Louis can feel every word against her lips; can see the way they create smaller clouds of breath in the cold. Harry continues, “If I saw a shooting star right now, I wouldn’t know what to wish for.”

Louis takes hold of Harry’s free hand, tangling their fingers together. “And why is that?”

Harry leans forward, pecks Louis’ cheek, then the corner of her mouth. Louis turns her head a bit and kisses her properly. Harry smiles against her lips and murmurs, “Because right now I have everything that I could possibly want.”

Louis hums at the back of her throat and pulls her in again, kissing her with everything that she has.

When they finally move inside, peeling off jackets and unlacing shoes at the door, Louis looks at the time on her phone and realises that it’s already past midnight, which makes it officially Harry’s birthday.

“Hey” she says, making Harry look up from where she’s pulling off her boots. Louis breaks out into a smile and Harry mirrors it as she straightens up, now only in her socks. Louis takes a step closer and presses a quick kiss to Harry’s lips. “Happy birthday, Haz.”

Harry’s smile gets, if possible, even bigger than before and her voice is unbelievably soft as she murmurs, “It really is.”

 

\--

 

Louis wakes up to Harry pressing kisses to her shoulder.

They’re curled up together, Louis lying on her side with an arm thrown over Harry, who’s snug against her chest. It’s comfortable and warm and almost familiar, even though they’ve never done this before. Harry is still kissing her, now right at the space where her shirt ends and her neck begins, and when Louis blinks her eyes open she is greeted by a mop of curls. She shuffles a bit, trying to get the hair out of her face. Harry seems to notice because she stops the kisses and looks up, a smile splitting her face as soon as she sees that Louis’ eyes are open.

“Morning Lou.” Her voice is raspy, not yet fully awake.

Louis presses a kiss to her forehead. “Good morning, birthday girl.”

Harry giggles against her chest, a happy, carefree sound that makes Louis’ insides turn to butterflies. They didn’t really do anything else last night, just fell into their bed and cuddled up together. They spent a ridiculous amount of time just kissing without any rush, enjoying the closeness of each other. When they decided that they should probably go to sleep Louis was delighted to find out that Harry preferred being the little spoon and promptly wrapped her arms around Harry from behind and pulled up the covers to their chins. They fell asleep like that, wrapped up in each other, and Louis doesn’t remember when she last slept as peacefully.

“Right,” Harry says after they’ve lain in comfortable silence for a while, both still waking up. “We should probably get up. Wouldn’t want to keep the others waiting.”

Louis groans but rolls out of Harry’s embrace to check the time on her phone on the nightstand. It’s just past nine, which means that everyone else should be awake and getting ready by now. She pecks Harry’s lips quickly, aware of possible morning breath issues, and gets up to put on some clothes.

(After they both brushed their teeth she might spend five minutes snogging Harry senseless against their bedroom door. But hey, it’s Harry’s birthday. She deserves to be treated well.)

Everyone else is already at the kitchen table having breakfast by the time that her and Harry come downstairs. As soon as they enter the room Niall breaks out into a cheer that turns into her singing Happy Birthday, quickly being joined by the others. Louis chants along with a grin as she watches Harry blush. It’s adorable and Louis doesn’t know what she did to deserve to have this angel in her life. Not that she’s complaining.

After breakfast they all bundle up and head outside. Liam organised a sleigh-tour for all of them and when they get down to the post office, which is the agreed meeting point, there is already a bearded man waiting for them with two horses bound to a sleigh. They all greet him happily, Liam making good use of his French skills as he chats with the guy about how excited they all are and other things that exceed Louis’ knowledge of the language. The others seem just as lost as she is but Harry nudges her with her elbow and nods her head towards Zayn with a smile, who is looking at Liam as if he just hung the stars and not like he’s simply talking in a foreign language. Louis supposes that she can’t really judge him because she’s pretty sure that she looks at Harry like that constantly. It’s relatable, if anything. Louis rests her arm on Harry’s waist and presses a kiss to her shoulder because she _can_ , now.

Harry grins at her and tilts her head towards the others, asking a silent question. When Louis shrugs she grins even wider and moves forward, pressing their lips together.

It doesn’t take long for Niall to notice. And as soon as Niall notices everyone else does, too, because she shouts “HOLY FUCK!” and everyone turns around to see what has her this excited, which leads to Zayn grinning widely and Emily whispering an “I knew it” to Maria, who hands her a few euros with the corner of her mouth twitching. The French guy looks at them in confusion and Niall is cheering and Harry is silently laughing at Louis’ side, and Louis can’t imagine a place where she’d rather be. d rather be. lace whereis cheering and Harry is silently laughing at Louis'dething like 'he just hung the stars aty, Liam s Harr

 

\--

 

The rest of the day is a blur. Harry sits next to Louis in the back of the horse sleight with tousled hair and a wide smile as they drive through the snowy landscape. When they take a short break to drink some tea from a thermos and for the coachman to feed the horses they get out to stretch their legs in the snow. They’re in the middle of nowhere and Niall and Harry manage to get stuck in the snow because they try to build a snowman but don’t realise that the snow next to the road is a lot deeper than that on it. Liam laughs as he pulls them out and shortly after they’re running off again, this time determined to _‘take the perfect Instagram picture’_ of some trees.

Louis walks around a bit with Zayn, both smoking. Zayn asks her if what she and Harry have going on is serious Louis doesn’t really answer, but she’s sure that he can tell that it is by the blush of her cheeks. Zayn just smiles, stubs his cigarette out in the snow and tells her that he’s happy for them. There’s something in the cold air and the distant laughter of the rest of their group that makes Louis grin wide, spreading her arms and throwing her head back as she starts spinning in circles. Zayn joins her after a moment and they spin in sync, stumbling on the snow with the sun in their face. Then Zayn challenges her to a race back to the sledge and they make their slightly wiggly way along the road, holding hands as they try to stay on their feet. They arrive laughing and breathless and Louis tumbles into Harry’s arms, holding on tightly. Harry lifts her up from the ground (damn their size difference) and starts spinning her around again, grinning as Louis tells her to stop between giggles.

They reserved a table at a restaurant in the village for a late lunch and spend a few hours gorging themselves on the food, hungry from being outside all morning. When the waiter finds out that they’re celebrating Harry’s birthday (Louis may have talked about it extra loudly each time he was passing them) he brings out a small cake with a candle after they finished eating and everyone starts singing Happy Birthday. Harry blushes and buries her face in her hand, but Louis can tell by her hidden grin that she loves it. She takes a boomerang of Harry blowing out the candle on the dessert for her Instagram story. She knows that some of the fans will freak out about it but she wants to document this moment so frankly, she doesn’t care. Harry closes her eyes as she makes a wish and then opens them again, smiling at Louis in a way that’s almost blinding and Louis gets the general gist of what she wished for.

When the group returns home, slightly tipsy from the wine and the laughter, Niall throws an arm around Louis and Harry and tells them she’s happy they’re _‘finally shagging’_ (at which Harry flushes in a lovely shade of pink) but complains that she’s now the only person in their group that’s not paired off. Louis and Harry laugh and share a look over Niall’s shoulders because they both know that there’s a girl back in London that Niall has been seeing on and off for the past few weeks and that, if Niall has a say in it, she’s not going away any time soon.

 

\--

 

It’s past midnight by the time that everybody retires to their rooms after having some more drinks and a chocolate cake for Harry after dinner and then just hanging out for ages, talking and laughing in front of the fireplace.

When they’re up in their room and ready for bed, Louis searches through her suitcase and pulls out a little present, wrapped with a small bow on top.

Harry is sitting on the bed, flicking through her phone, but looks up expectantly when Louis sits down next to her.

Louis pecks Harry’s lips, then clears her throat. “So, um, I got you something for your birthday – “

Harry breaks out in a smile. “Oh Lou, you didn’t have to!”

Louis smiles a bit, but her nerves are still heightened. “Listen, it might be a bit… much. Just remember I got it before _this_ ”, she gestures between the two of them, “happened.” Then she squares her shoulders and hands Harry the gift.

Harry nods, turns the little present around in her hands. She starts unwrapping it, making sure not to tear the paper.

Inside, there’s a little box that Louis knows Harry knows is a ring box. She holds her breath as Harry opens it and gasps at the little ring inside.

It’s see-through, made of glass, but on the inside there’s a little branch of heather enclosed. When Louis found it a few weeks ago she immediately thought of Harry and had to buy it, but now she realises that this is, perhaps, a bit too much. Harry is silent, staring at the ring as she runs a finger over its even surface. Louis’ leg jitters.

“Listen, it’s stupid. I can get you something else – “

Harry interrupts her by smashing their lips together. They kiss for a few seconds, Louis more confused than anything, until Harry pulls away again.

“Lou, holy shit, it’s perfect.” Harry takes the ring out of its case and puts it on her ring finger where it fits perfectly. She twists it around a few times with a smile, then looks at Louis again. She is almost whispering as she says, “How the fuck are you so amazing?”

A small smile takes over Louis’ face. “Good, then?”

Harry sets a hand on Louis’ neck and pulls her in for a kiss. Louis’ eyes shut immediately as she kisses back, pulling Harry closer until she’s almost lying on top of her. Harry doesn’t seem to care as she follows Louis’ lead and then they’re both flat on the bed and fully making out.

It takes a while for them to pull apart again, but when they do Harry tangles their fingers together and looks at them with a smile.

“Definitely good.”

 

\--

 

When Louis blinks awake the next morning there’s sunlight falling through the curtains. It falls directly onto the bed, casting Harry next to her in a golden glow and, unfortunately, hitting Louis right in the face. She groans and wraps an arm around Harry’s waist, burying her face between her shoulder blades. Harry doesn’t wake up but shuffles closer to Louis until there’s no space left between them. Louis smiles into the soft material of Harry’s shirt and dozes off again.

 

\--

 

After getting up late the day after Harry’s birthday they spend the afternoon enjoying their last day skiing until the sun is hidden behind mountains and their legs hurt. They spend their evening playing games and talking and laughing and Louis already misses this week even though it hasn’t finished yet.

The day after that is spent packing (Harry freaks out because she can’t find her travel-hoodie until she realises that Louis stole it), travelling to the airport (Harry freaks out because she thinks she forgot her passport until Louis tells her that she packed both of theirs), waiting for their plane, which, of course, is delayed (Harry freaks out because she misplaced her ticket until Louis shows her the two tickets lying on their bags next to them) and then flying back to London (This time Louis freaks out because her headphones aren’t where they’re supposed to be, but then Harry wordlessly grabs them from her pocked, pecks her lips and promptly falls asleep on her shoulder).

Both Harry and Louis are flying to Los Angeles tomorrow for work while the others stay behind in London, but they’ll all see each other in three weeks at the Oscars (the Oscars!). Louis and Harry spend the night at Louis’ apartment, asleep as soon as they get there and both groaning when their alarms ring far too early and they have to get up to catch their flight. Louis makes them both tea as Harry showers and gets a kiss in reward. (Or two. Or three. They might spend five minutes just kissing slowly in the kitchen.)

Louis has just gotten used to sleeping next to Harry after the last few days, and it seems like the stars are in her favour because it was already planned earlier this year that Louis would stay at Harry’s in LA again. There’s no big change in plans now, just that Louis might not stay in the guestroom anymore, which, you know, that’s actually a pretty big change in plans for Louis. They arrive in Los Angeles on Sunday afternoon and, after a quick run in with some paps who want to get pictures of them arriving together, they tumble into Harry’s king-size bed and spend the next twelve hours asleep.

 

\--

 

On Tuesday after their arrival in LA Louis has to go to some meetings for her new movie and Harry follows the next day with meetings of her own for another project she’s planning for this year. She told Louis about the script for the movie, the story taking place in the sixties with some fantasy elements and a cutesy gay love story in it. She’d also told Louis about her visions for the movie, something about Grease-like, colourful cinematography and a special location that she has in mind for it and Louis is excited for it because she knows that anything Harry does will be amazing.

Louis starts with rehearsals on Thursday and has more of them for the next two days. On Sunday, her and Harry return to the flower market that they visited nearly a year ago. This time, when Harry is admiring the abundances of heather that this market has, Louis sneaks an arm around her waist and tugs her close. They press their foreheads together and Louis breathes in, smells the almost sickeningly sweet scent of the flowers around them mingling with the smell of Harry’s shampoo and she gets overwhelmed for a moment. Then Harry moves forward and presses their lips together. Louis’ brain comes to a full stop and thinks of nothing except _HarryHarryHarry_.

 

\--

 

Valentine’s day is on Tuesday and Louis and Harry both have to work, to their dismay.

Louis has to leave before Harry is even awake, so she presses a kiss to Harry’s sleeping figure and places a small heart-shaped box of chocolates and a card with a stupid pun that she knows Harry will like on the kitchen table for her to find once she gets up. When she checks her phone on a break there’s a string of heart emojis from Harry, to which she answers with a bunch of hearts of her own. Then she scrolls through Instagram and has to hide a smile when she clicks on Harry’s story, which is a picture of an already half empty box of chocolates with the caption of _‘best thing to wake up to’_ and a heart drawn in the corner. She checks Twitter after this and, just like she suspected, there are already people freaking out about it and trying to guess who gave them to Harry. (Louis is pleased to say that most of the guesses are right.)

When she’s outside on another smoke break she checks her phone again and sees a missed call from Josephine. The woman picks up on the second ring.

“Louis, hi!”

Louis grins on reflex. Josephine might be her manager, but she has grown quite fond of her over the last couple of years. “Hi Josephine. How are you doing?”

“Oh, I can’t complain. How was France?”

Louis’ grin grows wider. “It was amazing.” She takes a drag from her cigarette. “That’s not why you called, though, is it?”

“Well…” The guilty tone of Josephine’s voice confirms Louis’ suspicions. She had a feeling that this conversation might be coming soon. “I just wanted to know what the deal is between you and Harry Styles. I mean, you obviously don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but there have been a lot of rumour lately I wanted to know what I should tell the press.”

Louis stubs out her cigarette as she wills her blush to disappear. She’s not a fucking teenaged girl any more, for fucks sake; she can think about this without fucking blushing. (The amount of internal swearing she’s got going on might be a tell-tale of her emotional state, though. Louis tells that thought to fuck off.)

“We haven’t really discussed that yet, to be honest.”

She can hear Josephine’s excited smile through the phone. “So you _are_ dating? Louis Tomlinson, did you actually manage get one of the most wanted gay women in the scene at the moment to be your girlfriend?”

Louis is about to reply with a smug _‘yes’_ when she realises that technically, Harry isn’t her girlfriend. She really needs to fix that as soon as possible.

She clears her throat. “I mean, she’s not officially my girlfriend yet but…” As she trails off she can hear Josephine’s squeal and her initial smugness returns. “Well, let’s just say I’ve been sharing a bed with her for the last two weeks.”

“Holy shit, Louis! I’m so proud of you.”

Louis chuckles at her manager’s excitement.

Josephine inhales deeply, then returns to a somewhat more professional tone. “So what should I tell the press?”

Louis considers it for a moment. “Can we just leave things without a comment at the moment? Just until I’ve talked to Harry about, like, labels and how we wanna do this thing?”

“Of course. I can just _‘no comment’_ any questions. Although I feel like you two are being pretty obvious already.” Josephine’s voice becomes soft as she continues. “Hey, Louis?”

Louis hums.

“I’m really happy for you.”

A smile spreads over Louis’ face as she replies, “I’m really happy for me, too.”

 

\--

 

Louis gets home (yes, she calls Harry’s house _‘home’_ now, and no, it doesn’t feel nearly as strange as it should) around four. The choreographer that she worked with today to rehearse for a dance sequence in the movie let them all go home early because he had to get ready for a date with his husband, at which everyone cooed and he blushed while trying to keep his image of the Strict And Pressuring Choreographer intact.

Harry is still out, so Louis makes herself some tea, puts on an old jazz vinyl she finds in Harry’s collection and curls up on the couch with a randomly picked book from one of the shelves. It turns out to be a cheesy lesbian romance novel (Harry seems to own quite a lot of those) and Louis gets lost in the story for a while.

The front door opens just as Ella Fitzgerald starts crooning a Gershwin song. Louis puts down her book, looking up expectantly as Harry comes into the room with slightly tousled hair and a wide smile on her face. One of her hands stays hidden behind her back as she moves over to press a kiss to Louis’ head, then the tip of her nose, then her lips.

Then she pulls away and murmurs, “Hi.”

Louis beams up at her and presses their lips together another time. “Hey, you.” She tucks a strand of Harry’s hair behind her ear and is delighted to see a soft blush dusting Harry’s cheeks.

Harry straightens up a bit. “I got you something. Pick a hand?”

Louis giggles at the fact that Harry seems to have forgotten that only one of her hands is hidden while the other one is resting on Louis’ shoulder. She turns her head to kiss said hand, then says, “Left.”

Harry beams and pulls out a bouquet of pink roses, at least twenty of them arranged beautifully. Louis feels her cheeks heat up and her eyes crinkle at the corners as she carefully takes the roses. “These are gorgeous, thank you, love.”

The endearment slips without her noticing and when she glances up Harry’s cheeks are even redder than before. “I was gonna get red ones, but then I googled the meaning and apparently, pink roses stand for admiration and appreciation and I wanted to, like, make sure that you know that that’s how I feel about you.”

Before Louis knows it she sets the roses down beside her, jumps up from the sofa and almost knocks Harry off her feet as she throws her arms around her neck. Harry laughs as her arms come to rest around Louis’ waist and she pulls her even closer to the point where Louis’ face is buried in her locks and Harry’s cheek is resting against the soft stubble on Louis’ head.

They stay like that, wrapped up in each other until Harry begins to sway to the music. The movement is small because they are so tangled up together that they can’t really make any steps. Louis’ voice is barely more than a breath when she finally dares to speak up.

“Hey, Haz?”

Harry is still swaying along to the music and only hums in reply.

Louis takes a deep breath and continues. “Be my girlfriend?”

Her face is still amidst Harry’s curls, but she can feel Harry’s dimples pop up as she answers, “Sure.”

Louis hides her own smile against Harry’s shoulder and tightens her arms for a moment. They keep swaying together, Harry humming along to the music and Louis listening with her eyes closed. The song is almost over when Harry starts singing along.

 

_“Could you coo?_

_Could you care?_

_For a cunning cottage we could share?_

_The world will pardon my mush_

_‘Cause I’ve got a crush, my baby, on you_

_Yes, I’ve got a crush, my baby, on you”_

 

\--

 

Harry takes her out for dinner to a small Italian place. As they are lead to their table in a secluded corner Louis notes that the restaurant is mostly filled with other couples, and that’s about the end of the attention she pays to her surroundings. Even the menu only gets about half a minute of her time as she settles on the first kind of pasta she sees and spends the next few minutes watching Harry as she studies the menu herself. She’s wearing the same red blouse she wore the first day that they met and it is driving Louis _insane_ because of how good she looks. She’s pretty sure that Harry knows the effect it has on her because ever so often she’ll catch Louis staring and smirk smugly. Louis, in turn, gets her revenge immediately because before going out she changed into a burgundy t-shirt similar to the colour of Harry’s blouse with a low neckline that shows off her collarbones and her cleavage wonderfully. Harry can’t seem to keep her eyes off her, so Louis figures that they’re even.

Once their waitress has taken their order and brought them some red wine Harry grabs Louis’ hand and tangles their fingers together. They talk about their day, the movie they watched the other night, the book that Louis started reading earlier. Harry tells her a story of when she filmed a short film in Italy and fell in love with the food and the weather and the small streets of Venice after dark. She only lets Louis’ hand go when their food arrives. The pasta is delicious and so is Harry’s lasagne, but their focus is less on the food and more on each other. Louis has to keep herself from leaning over the table and kissing Harry several times, but as they’re sharing a tiramisu between them she realises that Harry is literally her girlfriend now, so she picks up Harry’s hand and presses a kiss to her palm. She notices that Harry is wearing the heather ring Louis gave her for her birthday and presses another kiss to it just because.

Harry smiles at her, a bit befuddled at the sudden affection. “What was that for?”

Louis shrugs. “Just felt like it.”

Harry looks at her in wonder for a moment and Louis blushes under her stare. Then Harry kisses her hand and tangles their fingers together again.

They hold hands all the way home. Their arms swing back and forth between them on the way to the car, then Louis’ hand rests on top of Harry’s on the gearshift, then Harry pulls her through her front door in giggles.

Once they’re inside Harry pulls Louis close, presses their lips together and Louis reacts immediately, licking inside Harry’s mouth. Harry crowds her against the door, hands roaming all over Louis’ body, who in turn has her hands buried in Harry’s hair. Harry surrounds her with her smell and her touch and her lips and it’s so, so good.

Then Louis decides that they need to change their location to somewhere more comfortable and tugs at Harry’s hair to separate their lips, but Harry just moans in reaction (Louis stores this information away for later) and presses even closer to her, her hands landing on Louis’ ass as she grinds her hips forward. Louis’ breath hitches.

Her hands land on Harry’s shoulders and she pushes her away just enough for their mouths to be separated by a few centimetres. Their breath mingles as they pant in sync for a moment. Then Harry moves forward, attaching her lips to Louis’ neck, biting and licking and Louis leans her head back against the door to give her better access and loses any thought other than _how fucking good_ Harry’s mouth feels.

While one of her hands rests in Harry’s hair she lets the other wander over her body, moving from Harry’s shoulder blade over her ribs to her boobs. There is distinctively _too much clothing_ between them, so Louis breathes, “Bedroom?”

Harry pulls away from where she was creating an artwork of hickeys. Her pupils are so wide that her eyes look almost black, her hair is mussed up and her lips pink and swollen, but for a moment she looks at Louis in complete seriousness.

“Are you sure?”

Louis presses a quick kiss to her lips, far too chaste in comparison to what they were just doing, and nods. “Definitely. You?”

Harry’s smile is soft, just as unfitting in the situation, as she repeats, “Definitely.”

Louis kisses her again, but now that some general consent and direction has been set the kiss turns from chaste and sweet to _downright filthy_ in about half a second.

Then Harry pulls away again and drags Louis away from the entrance, and after bumping into the fancy dresser in the hallway and almost tripping on a pair of boots the two of them stumble into Harry’s bedroom and land on the bed in a giggling heap.

They roll around until Harry is flat on her back and Louis is straddling her with a grin. Harry’s hands find their place on Louis’ thighs immediately and start moving all over them. Louis leans forward for a kiss, merges their mouths together, pulls away again and licks Harry’s left cheekbone like she’s wanted to for _months_ , presses kisses along her jawline, sucks at the spot where it ends and her neck begins until she’s happy with the red love bite that appears there. She starts unbuttoning Harry’s blouse from the top, far enough that the tattoo under her boob is visible. Louis swallows hard at the sight, her mouth watering as she imagines all the things she wants to do to Harry.

Harry’s hands are tugging at the back of her shirt, so Louis sits up straight to pull it over her head, throwing it behind her somewhere. She watches as Harry’s jaw goes slack and smirks. Quite obviously her black lacy bra was the right choice this morning.

Harry pulls her down to shove her tongue down her throat and that’s about the end of any coherent thought for Louis.

 

\--

 

Afterwards, Louis and Harry lie shoulder to shoulder, breathing heavily and glistening with sweat. They don’t say anything, but Louis is pretty sure that Harry’s thoughts can’t be much different than her own: This was the best orgasm (orgasms _plural_ , to be precise) she’s had in a while, if not _ever_ , and if this is only the first time they had sex then how good is it going to be once they’ve figured out all of the ways to drive each other go _mad_? Personally, Louis can’t fucking wait to find out.

It takes them a while for Louis to press a kiss to Harry’s shoulder and roll out of bed, legs still slightly shaky as she pulls on a random pair of clean underwear she finds on a stack of clothes (they might be Harry’s) and goes to the bathroom to pee. As she washes her hands she inspects herself in the mirror. Her lips are bitten and red, a trail of hickeys follows the side of her neck and ends at her collarbone and there’s a general post-sex glow all around her. She looks thoroughly fucked out and it’s amazing.

When she returns to the bedroom Harry is changing the sheets wearing nothing but a pair of pink panties. The scent of sex is still hanging in the air even though the window is cracked open and the clothes they wore earlier are scattered all over the floor. Louis steps over them to help Harry and as they struggle together to pull the fitted sheet over the mattress they both burst out in laughter and Louis can’t believe that this is her life now.

Once they’ve finally finished Harry goes to use the bathroom herself and Louis finds her phone among the clothes on the floor and drops into bed. It’s past eleven, she sees then, and as she sets an alarm for the next morning she already knows that she’s going to die tomorrow. Whatever, this was definitely worth it.

Harry returns and crawls into bed with her after turning off the light and Louis turns off her phone (opened to Google), placing it on the nightstand and then turning over to face Harry, who’s looking at her with a grin.

“That was fun.”

Louis laughs at the understatement. “You could say that, yeah.” She watches Harry’s dimples pop up and promises herself to worship them at the next possible occasion. Then, as casually as possible, she says, “So, did you know that apparently, pink roses also stand for love?” She just googled this and she needs to know if this was Harry’s intention, if Harry is feeling the same way as her.

Harry blushes. “Well, I… Possibly.” She avoids Louis’ eyes as she answers, looking down to where their knees are close enough to touch.

Louis’ hand trails along Harry’s forearm, traces the edges of her rose tattoo, finds its way up to Harry’s cheek. Harry is still looking anywhere but at Louis’ face, so she slightly tilts her chin up. “Hey, Haz?”

Harry hums and finally meets Louis’ eyes and Louis is put off once again by how incredibly green her eyes are. The corners of her mouth tilt upwards as she continues, “I love you.”

Harry opens her mouth to reply, but Louis interrupts her. She needs to make this crystal clear, needs to make sure that Harry knows where she stands, so she says, “I love you and I am _in_ love with you. I know that this might be a bit early, but I feel like I’ve been in love with you forever. Like, from the moment I met you it felt as if I already knew you, as if I was just getting to know you again, and I don’t know if I believe in soulmates but Harry, if anyone were mine then it would be you.”

She takes a deep breath. Over the course of her words Harry’s smile has grown and now she’s positively beaming, eyes wide and dimples deep, and she moves forward to smash their lips together in a messy kiss that is more teeth and smiling against each other’s mouth than it is properly kissing. Louis doesn’t mind one bit.

Harry pulls away and presses their foreheads together, smile still wide, incredibly wide, as she whispers, “I love you so fucking much.”

Then she starts kissing all over Louis’ face, murmuring _‘I love you’_ into her skin, and when they finally fall sleep Louis does so with a smile on her face.

 

\--

 

They spend the next week and a half in a honeymoon-phase. Both of them still work every day, but when they’re home they spend hours watching movies, cooking together, dancing to their favourite music, quietly reading next to each other with their legs entangled. It’s not much different to the time before Valentine’s Day, or even to when Louis stayed at Harry’s in autumn before they were dating (which kind of says a lot about how platonic their relationship was back then). The only difference is that now they make out (a lot), press soft kisses to whatever part of the other person is close to them (even more) and barely spend a second together where they’re not touching.

The weekend after Valentine’s Day Louis gets her period and whines about how shitty everything is until Harry brings home a tub of chocolate-vanilla-strawberry ice cream and kisses her until she entirely forgets about her cramps.

After spending the weekend curled up on the couch with Harry periodically (hah!) feeding her sugary treats, the worst cramps luckily are over by Monday. The first read-through starts then and Louis meets the rest of the crew and is pleased to find out that they’re all really nice. (Except for one guy who tells Louis that she should put on something more professional than her sweatpants. Louis spends ten minutes ranting to Harry about how she has a sponsoring contract with Adidas and she was papped entering the building, for fucks sake, and besides, they make her ass look great. Harry patiently listens until she gets distracted by said ass and convinces Louis that she _should_ change out of her sweatpants into, well, nothing. Louis doesn’t mind one bit.)

 

\--

 

On Saturday, Harry’s living room is filled with about ten people and fifty different outfits. Since both Harry’s and Louis’ respective stylist, hair and makeup person and manager-slash-agent are present to make sure that they look their best tomorrow evening (Has Louis mentioned that she’s going to the freaking Oscars? She’s going to the freaking Oscars!) they both spend the whole day being passed from person to person, trying out several different outfits from the clothing racks that were delivered around ten this morning and having people poke at their faces and stick pins into their clothes. It’s an exhausting process, but when everyone leaves around three (don’t ask Louis why it took them five hours, she honestly couldn’t tell you) Louis is pretty confident that they’re going to steal everyone’s show.

Because Louis vetoed any dresses or skirts she’s going in another suit, this time a navy blue one that is (or rather _will be_ , as her stylist grumbles on her way out) perfectly tailored to show off her curves and her ankles, including the triangle tattoo, the whole outfit finished off with a white dress shirt and a pair of white dress shoes. Her hair was freshly shaved again today so it won’t be a problem tomorrow, much unlike Harry’s, which her hairdresser spent about an hour crying over because _‘you never use conditioner and now it’s all frizzy how the fuck am I going to style it tomorrow?’_ If Louis is honest she doesn’t really understand the woman’s distress. Harry’s hair looks fine to her (fucking gorgeous, more like), but she keeps that opinion to herself in fear of getting hit in the face by a pair of scissors.

Harry herself tried out several dresses that all looked amazing, but in the end decided on a white sleeveless jumpsuit that gets wider around the legs, combined with navy blue heels that her stylist brought her after she insisted on wearing something that matches Louis’ outfit. Louis blushed when Harry first brought it up because apparently, she’s at the emotional level of a bloody teenager. Once she sees her girlfriend (girlfriend!) in the full outfit though, including freshly trimmed locks and a thin belt that matches her shoes, meaning it matches Louis’ fucking suit, she can’t hide her smile and spends the next five minutes telling Harry how freaking gorgeous she looks.

They have to take about a hundred pictures in different poses, together and apart and in front of different backgrounds. Louis takes a picture of her clothing rack and conveniently angels her phone in a way to show the second rack behind it labelled ‘Harry Styles’. She posts it on her Instagram story and is well aware that all of her fans will freak out over it. She thinks that it’s okay, though, because they need some kind of preparation for when her and Harry arrive at the red carpet together tomorrow night. Technically, she’s only being a nice person that wants to avoid anyone having a heart attack.

 

\--

 

When Louis wakes up the next morning it’s to Harry pressing kisses all over her face. She shuffles around, wraps an arm around her girlfriend and groans as she buries her face in her chest.

Harry giggles. “Good morning, Lou.”

Louis feels the corner of her mouth lifting in its own accord. Her voice sounds raspy as she murmurs, “Morning, Haz.”

Harry lets her wake up in peace for a few minutes but it’s clear that she’s bursting with energy because she keeps moving around ever so often. Then she starts kissing down Louis neck, which, not fair. She knows that that’s Louis’ weak spot and she’s shamelessly using it against her.

“Hey, Lou?”

Louis shudders at the feeling of Harry’s breath against her neck. “Yeah?”

Harry pulls away, then, and when Louis slowly opens her eyes she sees that Harry’s beaming at her. “We’re going to the Oscars today.”

A smile spreads over Louis’ face. “We are.”

They stay like that, facing each other with smiles as bright as the sunlight falling through a gap in the curtains, until Harry moves forward and presses their mouths together.

They lazily make out for a while and at one point Harry moves to kiss down Louis’ throat, over her collarbone and along the curve of her stomach. Louis fists a hand into her hair and when her lips reach Louis’ hipbone and start sucking a hickey into Louis’ skin Harry murmurs, “That deserves to be celebrated, doesn’t it?”

Louis can just about moan in agreement before Harry pulls down her panties and her brain _stops_.

 

\--

 

The red carpet of the Oscars is fucking _insane_.

As soon as Louis steps out of the car everyone is screaming, and when she turns to help Harry get out everyone is screaming even _louder_. Louis is definitely overwhelmed. Luckily, Harry has been at the Oscars before so Louis just holds onto her hand and lets her take the lead.

There are more photographers than Louis has ever seen at one of these events and they all start clicking away as soon as Harry and her pose for them. The flashes make Louis dizzy and she’s pretty sure that the only thing keeping her from falling over is Harry’s arm around her waist. After one or two minutes of posing she turns her head to kiss Harry’s shoulder (yes, when Harry’s wearing heels her shoulder is on the same height as Louis’ lips, leave her be) and the photographers go even crazier. Louis is sure that there will be plenty of articles about her and Harry ‘confirming their relationship’ immediately, which then will explode once they both put out an official statement tomorrow. Josephine sent her a possible rough draft earlier this afternoon, but Louis figures that she might just tweet something like ‘drinking tea with my girlfriend’ and then tag Harry, because she doesn’t get why announcing their relationship should be such a big deal.

They give a few interviews, always sticking together as they are asked about their hopes for tonight (Louis doesn’t want to get them up too much, if she’s honest), their projects in the future (Louis gladly tells them as much as she’s allowed to about her new movie) and their relationship (they play it coy and neither deny nor confirm, but Louis has to stop herself several times from starting to rant about double standards and how if she showed up with a guy everyone would immediately assume that they were dating).

Then they’re inside and find Niall, Liam and Zayn in the crowd. Niall introduces them all to her girlfriend, who is absolutely lovely and compliments them on their work on the movie. The time it takes until the actual ceremony begins passes quickly as they catch up on what everyone’s been doing. Harry and Louis are teased mercilessly for being so in love that they actually matched their outfits, but then Harry points out the golden embroidery on Liam’s suit jacket matching the collar of Zayn’s dress shirt and Louis dramatically retches every time Niall so much as _looks_ at her girlfriend until they agree that maybe, they’ve all just become horrible saps over the past year.

Louis’ nerves flare up when they’re told to go to their seats and she realises that this is it, in a few hours she might actually have an Oscar to her name. She quickly checks her phone once she’s seated, Harry on one side and Niall on the other, and finds several good-luck-texts from friends and family alike. She calms down enough to spend the next ten minutes judging the various outfits of everyone around them with Niall.

The actual award ceremony seems to takes ages, filled with commercial breaks and speeches that Louis only vaguely registers. When the winners of _best supporting actress_ are announced she pays attention again, but Niall loses to some other newcomer whose film Louis hasn’t seen. She turns to comfort her friend but sees that that job has already been taken as Niall’s girlfriend is hugging her close. Niall meets Louis’ eyes over her shoulder and pouts, but she seems pretty content in her current position so Louis doesn’t feel _too_ bad.

Then Harry is up for _best director_ and she’s clutching Louis’ hand tightly, and Louis is _so sure_ that she’s going to win, but it ends up being some well known white guy who directed some bland war movie that Louis found boring, but that’s Hollywood for you. Louis just hugs Harry close and tells her that in her heart, she’ll always be the best director, maybe aside from whoever directed Grease. Harry laughs at that and Louis considers her mission accomplished.

Soon enough it’s her turn to clench Harry’s hand because they’re reading her name from the list of nominees for _best actress_ and everything is silent for a moment while the envelope is opened, and then:

“And the winner for best actress is… Louis Tomlinson!”

Everyone around her jumps up applauding and Louis is frozen, can’t understand what the fuck is going on, and then Harry is pulling her into a tight hug and whispering into her ear how proud she is and Niall is yelling and clapping her shoulder and Louis is walking up stage and accepts her Oscar.

She vaguely remembers making a speech thanking everyone involved in the production of the movie, her family, her friends, and then she rambles something about picking someone to fall in love with who’s supportive that she’s pretty sure everyone figures out is about Harry even though she never said her name. She thanks everyone again and then she’s directed off stage.

She’s still in some kind of trance when she gets back to her seat. By now the best actor has already been awarded and they’re on another commercial break after which the best picture will be announced.

Her friends immediately surround her, everyone hugging her and telling her how proud they are and she can’t stop smiling even though it still feels surreal. When she sits down Harry takes her hand and beams so widely that Louis swears every other light in the room dims in comparison.

Then the commercial break is over and the nominated movies are listed, including _Actually Star Light_. Louis is holding hands with Harry on one side and Niall on the other, both clutching just as hard as Louis is. It’s dead quiet in the room when the announcer makes a dramatic pause.

When he reads their movie off the card Louis is suddenly in the middle of a pile of people and she’s hugging everyone she can get her arms around and Niall is screaming into her ear and everyone around them is clapping.

Louis is sure that there are about fifty cameras on them and about a million people watching but it doesn’t matter when she jumps into Harry’s arms, wraps her legs around her waist and her arms around her neck, it doesn’t matter when Harry spins them around with a breathless laugh, it doesn’t matter when Louis leans down to press their lips together and their mouths fit like puzzle pieces and the only thing that Louis can think of is the woman in her arms.

 

 

 

 


End file.
